Star Literature
POETRY / A building, a tree, and a kid
Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.
POETRY / Saree
The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower
FICTION / The man who dug his own grave
Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.
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.
POETRY / Heartache
I’m going through a heartbreak
POETRY / Cyan is my name when I talk about you
I'm tired of living with this nagging thought that we'll cross paths someday, /You and I
FICTION / The chasm
At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.
FICTION / Konokbari
Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.
POETRY / The hills
They say the hills have eyes Iridescent, all knowing, and deathlike.
Shrines
Words have crashed onto your shores,
Kissing strangers
Kissing strangers only feels good
Persephone’s blood
Your gaze, a dagger, cuts through me,
Possible answers to “Why did you block me?”
I needed to de-escalate.
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.
Sleepy ghost flight
You have made ice out of my heart;/ we were once nothing–you brutalise me
The smell
“Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here.”
To the Newton of Gaza
Words were never my greatest strength/ But the arsonist's child will read them
Be a tree
Be a tree Get wet in sorrow’s shower and you’ll recover. From envy’s scorching sun gather strength
There’s no way you’ll outrun a bear
Smoother violence fills our hearts like charming splinters. The irony is I am the first of my women
