fiction

FICTION / Dhaka in slow motion

The city still wants to breathe.

Reader Submission / Maybe a mirage

Something you may... You may never find again.

How to: live

My love always arrived wrapped in silence, wrapped in dust. But that was childhood.

Heart, cling to me

We will make meaning out of the holes in the sun

FICTION / In defense of disorder

At a gathering in the unfinished community hall, Saleha raises a question: "They gave us walls. But what do we want to grow inside them?"

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / When the moon dances with elephants

In Lakshmi’s Secret Diary, Ari Gautier crafts a dazzling, multi-layered narrative that is as whimsical as it is profound.

FICTION / Metalheart

I know my engine is dying. I know that, by the time the next Eid rolls around, the busy little humans will have taken me apart to create something new.

FICTION / A sacrifice

When he was handing over the money to Naimuddin, their father, Kalam silently cried, holding Dholi’s neck in the yard.

INTERVIEW / Embracing the bizarre and ‘An Eye and a Leg’

The Asia regional winner of the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Faria Basher, in an interview with The Daily Star, opens up about her journey from lifelong reader to emerging writer.

January 30, 2025
January 30, 2025

12A

Rank badges, small bags, books, diaries, notebooks, files… That’s when it caught Razeen’s eye: a weathered, dusty old envelope bearing a faint, unrecognisable logo.

January 25, 2025
January 25, 2025

Accursed

This is an excerpt from Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's short story "Abhishapta", translated by Dipty Rahman

December 26, 2024
December 26, 2024

Bulb of a Wonton Shop

It is enough— Enough to be here, Beneath the bulb of a wonton shop.

December 26, 2024
December 26, 2024

Out of Body

I know of my feeble frame of its graying at the edges.

December 26, 2024
December 26, 2024

Migratory Animals

migratory animal Are you looking for a home?

December 21, 2024
December 21, 2024

The plebeians in the twilight

It was the shade of the ashwath that vanquished all one’s weariness from the fiery heat of Choitro. Or else it was not possible for fatigue to be eliminated so quickly.

November 30, 2024
November 30, 2024

The vanishing Ramanujan

The night after the story got published, Jamal stormed to my home at around 11 PM, drenched in the rain. That was the first and only time Jamal raised his voice against me

November 29, 2024
November 29, 2024

States

"That’s why I have jars of jealousy, anger, sadness, monotony, but this – it’s important."

November 29, 2024
November 29, 2024

Love poem for the reflection in the mirror

I will not even begin with the skies

November 23, 2024
November 23, 2024

At the birth of death

One sits silently. Her eyes blink sometimes. Sometimes her lips tremble a little, or they don’t tremble at all.