“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.
My city has turned off all its lights. And then someone has muddied, all the road-marks and signs.
“When I was born, Rabindranath persuaded my mother that it was boring to stick to well-used names and he proposed a new name for me…Amartya”, writes the author and economist.
Folk-ballads are living archives that represent the imagination, values, ideas, and aesthetics of the people to whom they belong. Folk-ballads are living archives that represent the imagination, values, ideas, and aesthetics of the people to whom they belong.
War-ravaged, Bangladesh faced crucial challenges centring nation building just after its birth.
Kabuliwala and Other Stories is a collection of twelve outstanding stories of Rabindranath Tagore, translated into English by Prof Shawkat Hussain, a former professor of the Department of English, University of Dhaka.
Etched a figurine, taking dots and lines and curves Xeroxed our desires weaving through the blurs
The very day in bless’d disarray, this is no time to stay in place. As begging kids and homeless dogs flee the chasing skies above,
This past March, Sahitya Akademi and Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) arranged an online Literature Conference on “Environment and Literature” with participation from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
Reversal of fairy tale tropes and themes of mental health and alienation run dominantly across One Minute Past Midnight (Nymphea Publications, 2022), a debut collection of poetry and prose by poet and teacher Arshi Mortuza.
Selvadurai’s book, set against the backdrop of escalating political tension in Sri Lanka prior to the 1983 riots, portrays the effect of the Tamil-Sinhalese clash on the personal lives of his characters, before giving a glimpse of the riots in the very last chapter.
