Kiriti Sengupta is an award-winning poet, translator, editor, and publisher based in New Delhi, India. Oneness is his latest collection of poems. The seemingly unassuming thin volume does not prepare readers for the multi-sensory experience that is in store for them as they open the book. Even before one’s mind and eyes get used to reading, the poet jolts readers as he writes “I rived my eyes / for inditing poems. / Would you reckon them / by their length?”
During the 53 years of Bangladesh’s existence, its people have had to endure and take down two autocratic regimes; not only did they oust an autocrat in July 2024 through a mass uprising, but 1991 also saw the downfall of the autocrat, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, through another rebellion.
“Mr Nurul Amin couldn’t realise what bureaucracy had dragged him down to”. Remember how you needed to absolutely memorise this line with context and underlying meaning for answering comprehension-based questions? Well, that was to earn a couple of marks in exams. Turns out, it is also a 101 guide on how to earn a nation back.
“My reader, I dip into the water just for you.” Bibhas Roy Chowdhury
Begum’s Blunder is a clever adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. The play transports the Victorian setting to the imaginary Behrampur, the heyday of the Nawabs in India. With Naila Azad Nupur’s direction, and Sadaf Saaz working her behind-the-scenes magic as the producer, the production by Kaleidoscope projects lights on the prism of Wilde’s 1892 play to find their contemporary refractions and reflections in colonial India.
It’s hard not to recall our many conversations about literature as I try to summarise Shah Tazrian Ashrafi’s debut collection of short stories. They were always short discussions, opening and closing off in spurts, as happens over text. Exclamations over a new essay collection by Zadie Smith, or a new novel by Isabel Allende.
This week, Kyla Zhao, the author of Valley Verified (Penguin Random House, 2024), graced us with an exclusive interview to give us insights into the changing trends in Asian American literature.
There are few novelists as cruel as Hanya Yanagihara—and in A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015), her pen draws blood. Nine years on, the controversy of the 800-page character study of an irreparably broken protagonist is still ablaze with accusations that it sadistically exploits trauma for profit.
In Gemini Wahhaj’s debut novel, The Children of This Madness (7.13 Books, 2023), the follow the lives of engineering professor Nasir Uddin and his daughter Beena, an aspiring PhD candidate living in the US.
Kiriti Sengupta is an award-winning poet, translator, editor, and publisher based in New Delhi, India. Oneness is his latest collection of poems. The seemingly unassuming thin volume does not prepare readers for the multi-sensory experience that is in store for them as they open the book. Even before one’s mind and eyes get used to reading, the poet jolts readers as he writes “I rived my eyes / for inditing poems. / Would you reckon them / by their length?”
“Mr Nurul Amin couldn’t realise what bureaucracy had dragged him down to”. Remember how you needed to absolutely memorise this line with context and underlying meaning for answering comprehension-based questions? Well, that was to earn a couple of marks in exams. Turns out, it is also a 101 guide on how to earn a nation back.
During the 53 years of Bangladesh’s existence, its people have had to endure and take down two autocratic regimes; not only did they oust an autocrat in July 2024 through a mass uprising, but 1991 also saw the downfall of the autocrat, Hussain Muhammad Ershad, through another rebellion.
“My reader, I dip into the water just for you.” Bibhas Roy Chowdhury
It’s hard not to recall our many conversations about literature as I try to summarise Shah Tazrian Ashrafi’s debut collection of short stories. They were always short discussions, opening and closing off in spurts, as happens over text. Exclamations over a new essay collection by Zadie Smith, or a new novel by Isabel Allende.
Begum’s Blunder is a clever adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. The play transports the Victorian setting to the imaginary Behrampur, the heyday of the Nawabs in India. With Naila Azad Nupur’s direction, and Sadaf Saaz working her behind-the-scenes magic as the producer, the production by Kaleidoscope projects lights on the prism of Wilde’s 1892 play to find their contemporary refractions and reflections in colonial India.
There are few novelists as cruel as Hanya Yanagihara—and in A Little Life (Doubleday, 2015), her pen draws blood. Nine years on, the controversy of the 800-page character study of an irreparably broken protagonist is still ablaze with accusations that it sadistically exploits trauma for profit.
This week, Kyla Zhao, the author of Valley Verified (Penguin Random House, 2024), graced us with an exclusive interview to give us insights into the changing trends in Asian American literature.
In Gemini Wahhaj’s debut novel, The Children of This Madness (7.13 Books, 2023), the follow the lives of engineering professor Nasir Uddin and his daughter Beena, an aspiring PhD candidate living in the US.
The Covenant of Water by physician and author Abraham Verghese tells the story of three generations of an Orthodox Saint Thomas Christian family in Kerala. Through suffering and loss, triumphs and victories, the importance of familial ties is examined and supported. In the Kerala of the 1940s, blood ties were sacred, but “family” also meant helpers who worked for you. Members of the three-generational family seem to be under a curse which causes its members to drown in water. The mystical power of water in our lives is explored with precision and sensitivity in the novel.