“Mr Speaker Sir, what did Bangalee intend to achieve? What rights did Bangalee want to possess? We do not need to discuss and decide on them now [after independence]. [We] tried to press our demands after the so called 1947 independence. Each of our days and years with Pakistan was an episode of bloodied history; a record of struggle for our rights,” said Tajuddin Ahmad on October 30, 1972 in the Constituent Assembly. He commented on the proposed draft constitution for Bangladesh, which was adopted on November 4, 1972.
Melissa Lozada-Oliva takes us on a bumpy apocalyptic horror ride in her debut novel Candelaria. Spanning across three generations of women, the novel ushers together an unsettled past and an even more bizarre present.
Pre-occupation Palestine had, to use Anglo-American poet WH Auden's words, "marble well-governed cities" full of "vines and olive trees." But Israel and its allies have turned it into "an artificial wilderness"
Review of ‘Apni Ki Alien Dekhte Chan?’ (Afsar Brothers, 2024) by Wasif Noor
Over the past couple of decades, Bangladesh has witnessed three significant social and political movements that have shaped the course of its history.
“All literature is regional; or conversely, no literature is regional”—is a common sentiment to have today, but I had first read those lines from Joyce Carol Oates, in her preface to a book of stories by one of Canada’s most gifted storytellers, Alistair MacLeod. In MacLeod’s short stories, his Cape Breton Island was a refrain through which the momentous lives of his ordinary characters came through.
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Gulshan Society held a two-day language festival at the Gulshan Lake Park, curated by Sadaf Saaz and Jatrik. The event took place over the weekend of 21-22 February that saw discussion panels, original musical performances, and poetry recitations, surrounded by an array of book stalls and food courts.
Obayed Haq’s Bangla novel, Arkathi, is almost a bildungsroman tale filled with adventure and self-reflection. In true bildungsroman fashion, where the protagonist progresses into adulthood with room for growth and change, a bulk of Haq’s novel talks about the spiritual journey that an orphan, Naren, takes through a forest in order to mature, and comes out on the other side to realise a community’s deep, hidden truth.
Proverbs, short and profound, often sum up wisdom passed down through generations. Bangla, one of the world’s most spoken languages, is rich with such gems. One such saying in the language—”manush ki bolbe?”—is central to Intimacies of Violence, a debut book by Dr Nadine Shaanta Murshid, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.
Zines are a new name for an old thing. They are the revolutionary pamphlets of the 1930s, and the underground student manifestos of the ‘50-’60s. They are a distant relative of the tattered choti mags. There are many other examples from around the world of self-published, self-distributed, and often dangerous reading material.
Someone in a chat group somewhere called Sally Rooney the ‘Taylor Swift’ of the literary world, and now I cannot unsee it.
Patriarchy would have you believe that women are inherently complicated—creatures who must be defined, boxed in, or reduced to stereotypes.
November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, marks the beginning of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which goes until December 10, Human Rights Day.
Bangladesh is currently going through turbulent times as it tries to find its way out from dictatorial political rule towards an uncertain future. During the past decade, Bangladesh did achieve significant economic progress, but it came with increased economic inequality, unparalleled corruption, and loss of personal freedom.
The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.
The city of Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, was once the breeding hotspot of the 20th century’s greatest writers, scientists, scholars, and activists.
Folk Melody of Bangladesh: An Anthology of Bangladesh Folk Music in Standard Notation is a music anthology that compiles 204 carefully chosen folk songs of Bangladesh that date from the 16th century.
