Reviews
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Sports journalism and Bangladesh
Textbooks in Bangladesh tend to be written by foreign authors. Those that are written by Bangladeshi authors, emphasise on examples in a non-Bangladesh context.
'Independence': A painfully poignant Partition story
Divakaruni has a message to send with this novel. To her, independence entails not just liberation or freedom from subjugation, it also means doing the right thing for oneself and for the people around us.
Professing criticism: On Naeem Mohaiemen's new book of essays
Although the book is written in English, he has plenty of doubt to dispense about the language, its usefulness, acceptance, and communicability when it comes to writing and creating art in Bangladesh.
Flesh in ruins
It is the disease that maintains the upper hand in the plot. A jarring voice of its own, the toxins spilling across the pages in bold, chaotic words.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Family of feelings: Iffat Nawaz's 'Shurjo's Clan'
Part memoir, part magical realism, this is a story about identity and the idea of home.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / The Bhawal story through women’s voices in Aruna Chakravarti’s ‘The Mendicant Prince’
The story of the ailing Bhawal prince, Ramendranarayan Roy, the Mejo Kumar, who while taken to Darjeeling to recuperate, died and was cremated there, under mysterious circumstances, and who then returned years later as a wandering ascetic with partial amnesia!
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Andy Warhol & Truman Capote talk out their anxieties
Andy Warhol suggested they tape their conversations on his Sony Walkman, to which Truman Capote agrees.
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose: A relative’s perspective on an enigmatic hero
Nehru was revolted by Nazism and the persecution of Europe’s Jews. Bose…felt that the Indian struggle for freedom should override all other considerations.
Unpacking Bangladesh’s obsession with Bollywood
Mrittika Anan Rahman (MAR): What does it say about Bollywood that it became mediators of so many of India and Bangladesh’s neighbouring cultures through its adaptation of stories such as Mughal-E-Azam, Umrao Jaan, or Laila Majnu?
Colm Tóibín takes Henry James for a ride
In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this page, this monthly column on short stories is a little treat to ourselves—a short and delicious reminder of what the simple act of storytelling can accomplish.
Mohiuddin Ahmed and the industry he pioneered
The loss dealt to Bangladesh and its publishing industry this week will be unparalleled—at 12:59 am on Tuesday, June 22, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Emeritus Publisher and founder of University Press Limited (UPL), passed away after surviving Parkinson’s disease for 20 years.
Who is Ayad Akhtar?
When I began reading Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown and Company, 2020), all I knew about it was that it was a memoir; an account of the life of the author, Ayad Akhtar—a second-generation Muslim immigrant with Pakistani parents who migrated to America to further their careers as doctors.
‘The Moment of Lift’: Melinda Gates and the developing world’s untapped female-fuel
Female empowerment is often seen as a luxury reserved for privileged societies—something no struggling community can think about. After all, we misapprehended women’s empowerment as an issue exclusively for women. Yet by making this mistake, struggling communities continue trying to climb out of poverty whilst carrying the deadweight of wasted potential—disenfranchised women.
Ann Patchett’s ‘The Dutch House’: On branches of memories and pain
Even though we moved out of our grandmother’s house in Dhaka more than a decade ago, my sister and I still associate the word “storm” with the smell of the unripe mangoes that the kalboishakhi would force down from the trees in her backyard. There are many other quirks we share, things that might seem insignificant to someone who was not a part of our lives back then. But to us, the house with its long corridors and leafy backyard, and a front yard that turned into a badminton court each winter, is nothing short of a wonderland, a place that nurtured us even as it introduced us to the harsher realities of life, a place that remains a living, breathing character in the many dreams and nightmares that we have.
Feminism, activism, and literature: The legacy of Sufia Kamal
Sufia Kamal’s is a name revered in nearly every household in the country, and not just because of the spontaneous literary genius that she possessed. She was simultaneously a poet, a feminist activist, and a cultural icon; all of these identities were in some way or other reflected in her literary works—comprising short stories, plays, novels, travelogues, and autobiography—which took her closer to touching the lives of a broader spectrum of people across the country.
Books to read if you miss travelling this summer
I know it’s hard when you want to travel, but life, owing in no small part to COVID-19, has other plans. If you are anything like me, then you are probably avoiding spending too much time watching the news right now. One way I found to cope with these strange times is to escape into books, especially those that transport me to wonderful locations. Here are five such books to read if you miss travelling.
A tribute to my father and his bookshelf
Last week, we marked the 10th year of my father’s death, on June 15th. Every year since we lost him, I would make it a point to post little stories about him from my childhood, on social media. I call them #memorydoodles. This year, while posting pictures and posts about my father, memories of Abbu – his bookshelf and the many books strewn all over our home – rushed in and I found myself remembering all the moments we shared around books.
Sensing Bangladesh through art and poetry
In their latest offering, Sensing Bangladesh – A Children’s Guidebook to Art from Bangladesh, UK-based book publisher Bok Bok Books attempts to represent the cultural, linguistic, and literary heritage of Bangladesh through children’s books.