Translation
BOOK REVIEW: POETRY / About romances ever-appealing
Irrespective of the ambivalence that marks Metaphysical poetry of the 17th century, Selim marvels us with his choice of words and precision of utterance.
FICTION / Jishu
After the previous tenant vacated the house, Khan E Alam decided not to accommodate any younger residents.
POETRY / Anonto prem
I wove necklaces of lyrics/ Which you'd wear beautifully
POETRY / Shedin dujone dulachinu bone
You know how that day the wind brought out/ The crazy thoughts I had in me all the while.
POETRY / Je chilo amar shopnocharini
You called me close in the moments of grace/ Veiling my delicate senses
POETRY / Narcolepsy days
For poet Abul Hasan Neither the pen nor the camera has changed
POETRY / Saree
The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / The strange library of Haruki Murakami
Review of the Bangla translation of ‘A Strange Library’ (Knopf, 2014) by Haruki Murakami
EVENT REPORT / Sheikh Zayed Book Award announces winners for the 18th edition
The winners were announced on 4 April, 2024, with the ceremony being hosted by Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the SZBA Board of Trustees
Ujan Book Review Contest 2021 announces winners, reviews Korean literature in translation
Participants reviewed Bangla translations of two significant works of Korean literature—Korear Kobita (Korean Poetry) translated by Chhanda Mahbub, and Korear Golpo (Short Stories of Korea), edited by Soroishwarja Muhommod. Both translations were published by Ujan Prakashan and assisted by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, who also helped organise the contest.
JCB Prize for Literature announces 2021 longlist
The annual competition, which has been hailed as “India's most valuable literature prize”, offers INR 2,500,000 (USD 35,000) to its winner for distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in or translated to English.
In ‘Toward Happy Civilization’, a portrait of desperation
Typical of any Samanta Schweblin story from her International Booker-longlisted collection, Mouthful of Birds (OneWorld, 2019), a sense of anxiety is strongly perceptible here, especially through the characters Fi and Pe. One grows afraid of them as they start showing both lovingly caring and Big Brother-like tendencies. What heightens the ominous halo surrounding these two is the hostages’ inability to translate their emotions; why would someone who provides for you not give you a way out?
Lese Literati: Goethe-Institut Bangladesh starts German literature reading series
Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, in collaboration with Dhaka Lit Fest, North South University, and University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh, are hosting a series of author talks and readings from August to November 2021, with the aim of bringing German literature to Bangladeshi readers.
Mahmudul Haque and Mahmud Rahman's 'Black Ice': A portrait of a time and a man
The novel tracks the childhood of Abdul Khaleq, which comes back to the man every sleepless, teary-eyed night. The chapters alternate between these recollections—taking residence in rural 1940s Kolkata—and the now, where schoolteacher Khaleq repeats a daily Sisyphean routine in newly christened-Bangladesh.
Won-Pyung Sohn’s ‘Almond’: A story of loveable monsters
Won-Pyung Sohn’s Almond (HarperVia, 2021), translated to English by Sandy Josun Lee, is a mesmerizing novel that captures the heart of a reader indelibly. Fifteen-year-old Yunjae cannot feel emotions due to alexithymia and is deemed a monster by others. Feelings such as love and empathy are mere words to him. At the age of six he sees a child gang-beaten to death by other children. More than a decade later, he watches a man stab his grandmother and hammer his mother into a comatose state, without batting an eyelid. At school he is tormented and at home, he becomes aware of an ever-growing void due to the absence of a loving family, but nothing can penetrate his heart. His lonely days pass in nonchalance until one day an unusual request from a stranger ends up connecting him with another...
Women in Translation Month: Why we need more of Selina Hossain
The women in Selina Hossain’s books are strong, because the author herself likes to be inspired by the reality around her.
Shaheen Akhtar and Shabnam Nadiya’s ‘Beloved Rongomala’ to be published by Eka, Westland Publications
Shaheen Akhtar’s 'Beloved Rongomala', translated from the Bangla novel, 'Shokhi Rongomala' (Bengal Publications, 2015), by Shabnam Nadiya, will now be published by India’s Eka imprint of Westland Publications. The novel tells the story of Queen Phuleswari, a child bride, and of Rongomala, a woman of legend—a low caste mistress to the king who protested the limits to which her rights were confined by the class and caste prejudices of 18th century southern Bengal.
Humanity, freedom, and magic realism in the face of authoritarian powers in Iran
The novel is told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl. Bahar died in a fire after her family home—a secular and intellectual space—in Tehran is stormed by fanatics.
Facebook researchers use maths for better translations
Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on dictionaries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: numbers.