CREATIVE NONFICTION / The pond remembers: On visiting Lojithan Ram’s ‘Arra Kulamum, Kottiyum, Āmpalum’

In a time where spectacle often overshadows sincerity, where art sometimes forgets its heart, Lojithan Ram offers a whisper. A blue whisper. And in that whisper, you may just hear your own name

BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Imagining Africa in Bengali fiction and verse

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

BOOK REVIEW: POETRY / When silence speaks louder than words

'On the Other Side of Silence' is a thoughtful volume of poetry, not just because it summarises every existential crisis that visits contemporary life but also because it engages, unlike a postmodern cynic, with the issues that plague the world

HarperCollins India publishes English edition of Mohammad Nazimuddin’s acclaimed thriller

Nazimuddin is widely known in Bangladesh for his fast-paced crime and psychological novels

Baatighar turns 21: Celebration today at their Dhaka branch

To commemorate the milestone, Baatighar will host a series of events throughout the year across all four divisional branches.Ba

Even in hell, chanachur

And I realised: / even in the line to hell, / waiting for punishment, / we'd still reach for chanachur. / We'd still find comfort / in the crunch of survival

Box office nation

When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.

Things I have had to forfeit and things I am unable to find

Patience, like moss, that grows on red soil. Conversations with friends, like inadequate breakfast.

Bon Bibi reimagined: A feminist tale from the Sundarbans

This was a syncretic tale of the Sundarbans that was reinterpreted into being at Goethe-Institut Bangladesh on Saturday, June 28, by Folklore Expedition Bangladesh in a puthi path titled “Bon Bibir Jahuranama”

Shards of beauty: Poems of a lifetime

Shahid Alam and I go back a long way, though we had both half-forgotten it until recently. He was two years senior to me at St. Gregory’s High School.

Acknowledging the lesser-known

Aptly named Ateet Theke Adhuna: Bangladesher Naari Lekhok, this collection is unlike a conventional anthology. Starting with Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, the list of writers includes an impressive 66 great authors.

Reviews

Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / Reading Baitullah Quaderee: A critic’s view of a poetic decade

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. 

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.

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Of women, rage, and what burns unseen

These stories subtly highlight how even within patriarchal structures, men, too, are shaped, sometimes twisted by the systems they benefit from.

⁠⁠Recommendations

⁠⁠Recommendations

THE SHELF / Books for different types of readers on Eid

Eid-ul-Azha is right around the corner, which entails delicious meals, family gatherings, and a little extra downtime between all the Qurbani preparation and feasting.

THE SHELF / 5 books my 5-year-old can’t get enough of

In a world where smart TVs, touchscreen tablets, and mobiles are always within reach, I feel grateful that my daughter, who is almost five and a half, often brings me books and asks me to read them to her for a quick, fun storytime

THE SHELF / Book recommendations for different personality types

This year’s World Book Day theme, “Read Your Way,” invites readers to embrace their own paths, rhythms, and preferences regarding books

⁠⁠Features

⁠⁠Features

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.

INTERVIEW / An evening at Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay and Dhaka Sessions

In one of their most recent episodes, Dhaka Sessions featured three young artists from Bengal Parampara Sangeetalay to perform in the intimate and literary, lush space of Bookworm Bangladesh

ESSAY / Panic, puke and Palahniuk

Now, two decades later, the question lingers: Did "Guts" really cause waves of fainting spells, or did the legend grow legs of its own?

Ammu reads

Throughout my school years, Ammu would assign a different writer for me to read during each vacation

‘All Quiet on the Western Front’: Reverberating despair and dread through a theatrical production

All Quiet on the Western Front (Little, Brown and Company, 1929), a semi-autobiographical novel authored by a German World War I veteran, Erich Maria Remarque, is one of the greatest anti-war works of literature—one that was published nearly a century back and still holds relevance today

The poet who declared birth was his eternal sin

Remembering the stateless poet Daud Haider

A tribute to the written word

'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies'

⁠⁠Fiction

⁠⁠Fiction

KHERO KHATA / Under the olive tree

Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.

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?"

KHERO KHATA / Polychrome

I made my first kite out of white paper scraps; on my 16th birthday, it came to me that they needed a pop of color.

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.

A sacrifice

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

Vivisection of a cat

When Ullash decided to choose the cat for one of his experiments, our borobhabi, Ullash's mother, didn't raise a single objection

Wash your fruits

I rush to the mirror. My gums are pristine, no wound, no sin. But when I look back at the fruit, the truth reveals itself: the flesh is blackened, writhing with tiny, hungry mouths. The rot has teeth

⁠⁠Poetry

⁠⁠Poetry

Poetry / The poetry of rain

It would rain in the rains / And the rest of this poem would be written by someone else

KHERO KHATA / The people within me

I am not a single name. Not a single wound.

KHERO KHATA / Fragments

Grey chips of rough cement  Rust rubble all around,

The pond remembers: On visiting Lojithan Ram’s ‘Arra Kulamum, Kottiyum, Āmpalum’

In a time where spectacle often overshadows sincerity, where art sometimes forgets its heart, Lojithan Ram offers a whisper. A blue whisper. And in that whisper, you may just hear your own name

2d ago

When silence speaks louder than words

'On the Other Side of Silence' is a thoughtful volume of poetry, not just because it summarises every existential crisis that visits contemporary life but also because it engages, unlike a postmodern cynic, with the issues that plague the world

4d ago

Imagining Africa in Bengali fiction and verse

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

4d ago

HarperCollins India publishes English edition of Mohammad Nazimuddin’s acclaimed thriller

Nazimuddin is widely known in Bangladesh for his fast-paced crime and psychological novels

6d ago

Baatighar turns 21: Celebration today at their Dhaka branch

To commemorate the milestone, Baatighar will host a series of events throughout the year across all four divisional branches.Ba

6d ago

Even in hell, chanachur

And I realised: / even in the line to hell, / waiting for punishment, / we'd still reach for chanachur. / We'd still find comfort / in the crunch of survival

1w ago

Things I have had to forfeit and things I am unable to find

Patience, like moss, that grows on red soil. Conversations with friends, like inadequate breakfast.

1w ago

Box office nation

When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.

1w ago

Bon Bibi reimagined: A feminist tale from the Sundarbans

This was a syncretic tale of the Sundarbans that was reinterpreted into being at Goethe-Institut Bangladesh on Saturday, June 28, by Folklore Expedition Bangladesh in a puthi path titled “Bon Bibir Jahuranama”

1w ago

Acknowledging the lesser-known

Aptly named Ateet Theke Adhuna: Bangladesher Naari Lekhok, this collection is unlike a conventional anthology. Starting with Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, the list of writers includes an impressive 66 great authors.

1w ago