Review of ‘Jodi Lokkho Thake Otut: Shafolyer Khola Koushol’ (Anyaprokash, 2025) by Asif Iqbal
Mowtushi Mahruba’s Africa in the Bengali Imagination: from Calcutta to Kampala, 1928-73 is a distinctive and pioneering work on the way the continent led to creative writing in English as well as Bengali over the decades
When I picked up Baitullah Quaderee’s 'Bangladesher Shater Dashaker Kabita', it wasn’t particularly out of scholarly curiosity. The book is, by design, a doctoral thesis—its structure conventional, its chapters arranged by academic demand—but what caught my interest was not the format, nor even the topic. It was the author himself.
Review of ‘Reframing My Worth: Memoir of a Bangladeshi-Canadian Woman’ by Habiba Zaman (FriesenPress, 2024)
In the contested notion of creating a ‘nation,’ few ideas provoke as much ire among the everyday citizens of a bordered entity as the concept of a space—one that carries with it the weight of instilling an identity.
Review of ‘Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood’ (Hodder and Stoughton, 1986) by Anthony Mascarenhas
Review of ‘Renegotiating Patriarchy’ (LSE Press, 2024) by Naila Kabeer
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.
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.
Review of ‘Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia’ (Picador India, 2023) edited by Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Tarana Husain Khan, and Claire Chambers
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.
In Alex Christofi’s newly published fascinating book—Cypria: A Journey to the Heart of the Mediterranean—we get a deep close-range look at one of world civilisation’s interesting hotspots that has long swayed between the cross-currents of the rise and fall of the great monotheisms.
Review of ‘Bidrohi Puran’ (Pendulum Books, 2024) by Arif Rahman
Inevitably, Kaiser Haq’s The New Frontier and Other Odds and Ends in Verse and Prose is about the poet, his poetic predilections, and situatedness at this time of human existence. In many ways it is typical of the verse we have come to expect from our leading poet in English for a long time now, but in other ways it articulates his present-day concerns in new and striking poetic measures.
The book discusses the lack of sensitivity among policymakers in acknowledging the distinct socio-cultural differences and linguistic and community identities of the refugees that often got merged. It explores how different categories of refugees received different treatments.
The title of this book suggests that it is based in Bengal but it really meanders deftly across time and space, more often than not in “mazy motion”.
The author, architect Tanwir Nawaz, besides expressing his thoughts, ideas, and artistic struggles within a body of professional works, has poured his emotions and nostalgic memories into Exploring the World of Architecture and Design.
Chip War, a highly praised book written by Chris Miller who teaches International history at Tuft University’s Fletcher School, USA, is a New York Times bestseller.
A closer look into these stories reveal reasons why cancer continues to be dreaded—it is not just fear of the malady itself, but also the challenges of undergoing treatment through an overburdened healthcare system and its exorbitant costs.
