essay
ESSAY / On the national anthem of Bangladesh: An apologetic discourse
The recent attack on “Amar Shonar Bangla” stems from this type of attempt to categorise the national anthem, leading to further allegations against it
ESSAY / Falling through the cracks of the ‘normal’
There is something to be said about the innate process of otherising a person with disability, and pushing them out of the group of the ‘norm’ and into the group of the ‘exception’.
ESSAY / William Blake: Pioneering psychoethnography in art and poetry
As we continue to grapple with questions of identity, meaning, and societal change, Blake's visionary oeuvre serves as a guiding light
ESSAY / Intertextuality in Shahaduz Zaman’s ‘Prithibite Hoyto Brihaspatibar’
Shahaduz Zaman stands out prominently as a significant figure in the contemporary Bangla literary landscape, utilising intertextuality throughout his works, and infusing various texts and genres into his narratives.
ESSAY / ‘The day begins wrong’: Mastering tension and suspense in fiction
In my creative writing classes, whether at the University of Toronto or the Hermitage Residency in Bangladesh, I emphasise that any student of fiction must first master suspense
ESSAY / The English-Bangla conundrum continues
When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.
ESSAY / To read as an academic: The transformative journey of a reader turned student
I became curious as to how the experience of reading might change for someone who studied it for a living, and how the lens of a literature student might differ from that of a creative writing one
ESSAY / Between falling and failing
Although there is much merit to the representation of women’s pain, the evolution of the heavily aestheticised “sad girl” trope in popular culture has started to make a mawkish caricature of real women’s suffering
ESSAY / The promises and pitfalls of decolonial thinking
The craze that once prevailed in academia over postcolonialism no longer seems to hover around there anymore.
Romance and unfulfillment in the past and the present
Much like most media geared toward women, romance novels have frequently received flack for its supposed shallowness, absurdity, and flamboyancy.
On ‘Gaza Monologues, the Land of Sad Oranges’: A theatrical performance by Prachyanat
How do you attempt to understand testimonies of mass public trauma?
The first semester is your shitty first draft
Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.
The controversial legacy of Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’
Readers often look for relatability in the stories and characters they are reading but Nabokov doesn’t give his readers that comfort or spoon feed them. Rather, he challenges them to eschew feeling compelled by Humbert’s justification of his innocence
Nailing your university essays: The dos and don’ts
Making sure to stick to the prompt and ticking all your requirements can massively streamline your writing process.
Ludic space for Tagore’s fictive children
An interesting concern in contemporary children’s literature criticism is the discussion of power. Do the fictive children in children’s books, conceived and delivered by the adult author, have the ability to exercise their will and possess a voice?
Sultana’s Dream and the issue with feminist utopias
“They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing.”
On the many flavours of horror in children’s literature
What do we make of the mysterious thread that connects these stories not by genre, but by an imagination so wondrous they leave room for an underlying horror, and the many things that can mean?
Being a third culture kid
As the title suggests, I am a third culture kid, a TCK, or a TCI (I for individual), the phrase literally translates to “people who were raised in a culture other than their parents’ or the culture of their country of nationality, and also those who live in a different environment during a significant part of their child development years”.
Music and the space it creates for literature
I cannot, for the life of me, definitively describe what makes music. Growing up in a family where music of any form was not typically paid any reverence, my exposure to it was tunnelled into mainstream pop songs for the longest time.