Remembering Melville in his bicentenary year
Melville's critics, inevitably, panned him for what he had characterised self-deprecatingly and in his frustration as his fictional "botches," although his works were rarely that.
Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Gora’: From notions of purity to an all-embracing Bharatborsho
Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, written between 1907 and 1909, reveals the ways in which Tagore addresses the all-important issues of his time—national identity formation, the coming together of people over time, and obstacles or barriers put in the way of the progress of a nation. The novel captures Tagore’s fascination with envisioning a future based on human amity or moitri, one where the powerless and the dispossessed transcend the barriers of division and distrust.
War and peace and poetry and poets
How can you talk about peace without taking into account war? Both are subjects not only of Tolstoy’s great novel but also of the two founding epic poems of Greek as well as Indian literature.
In Memory of Jibanananda Das
By 1954 Jibanananda Das, after years of neglect, was beginning to gain increasing attention as a poet all over Bengal—East or West—and had a steady teaching job after a long, long time. Indeed, in 1953 he had been awarded the Rabindra-Smriti Puroshkar for his book of verse, Banalata Sen. In May, 1954 his Jibanananda Dasher Shreshto Kobita came out from a reasonably good publishing house, collecting his best poems.
Ahaduzzaman Mohammad Ali's 'Nakhshatra Nivey Jai': Poems well worth waiting for
A series of poems also reflect his ecological sensitivity to the machine in the garden and snakes and hyenas imperiling forests and rivers and Dhaka—the city he has lived in for most of his life.
Home in the World: The Autobiography of a Well-Known Bengali
The dust jacket cover of Amartya Sen’s absorbing and remarkable memoir shows him as a young boy, with his sister and a cousin at home, looking out at the world. An apt cover image of a fittingly titled book about someone who would be always taking in the world as he went all over
Bangabandhu’s 1952 trip to New China
“The truth is—here is a new country, new people and new modes of behaviour. It appears that there is newness in the air, everywhere” (New China, 143)
A history of this subcontinent, woven in jute
The book reveals how in mid-19th century colonial East Bengal jute first emerged “as a global commodity”
August 29, 2023
Remembering Melville in his bicentenary year
Melville's critics, inevitably, panned him for what he had characterised self-deprecatingly and in his frustration as his fictional "botches," although his works were rarely that.
August 5, 2023
Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Gora’: From notions of purity to an all-embracing Bharatborsho
Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, written between 1907 and 1909, reveals the ways in which Tagore addresses the all-important issues of his time—national identity formation, the coming together of people over time, and obstacles or barriers put in the way of the progress of a nation. The novel captures Tagore’s fascination with envisioning a future based on human amity or moitri, one where the powerless and the dispossessed transcend the barriers of division and distrust.
March 25, 2023
War and peace and poetry and poets
How can you talk about peace without taking into account war? Both are subjects not only of Tolstoy’s great novel but also of the two founding epic poems of Greek as well as Indian literature.
October 22, 2022
In Memory of Jibanananda Das
By 1954 Jibanananda Das, after years of neglect, was beginning to gain increasing attention as a poet all over Bengal—East or West—and had a steady teaching job after a long, long time. Indeed, in 1953 he had been awarded the Rabindra-Smriti Puroshkar for his book of verse, Banalata Sen. In May, 1954 his Jibanananda Dasher Shreshto Kobita came out from a reasonably good publishing house, collecting his best poems.
October 13, 2022
Ahaduzzaman Mohammad Ali's 'Nakhshatra Nivey Jai': Poems well worth waiting for
A series of poems also reflect his ecological sensitivity to the machine in the garden and snakes and hyenas imperiling forests and rivers and Dhaka—the city he has lived in for most of his life.
September 17, 2022
Home in the World: The Autobiography of a Well-Known Bengali
The dust jacket cover of Amartya Sen’s absorbing and remarkable memoir shows him as a young boy, with his sister and a cousin at home, looking out at the world. An apt cover image of a fittingly titled book about someone who would be always taking in the world as he went all over
August 15, 2022
Bangabandhu’s 1952 trip to New China
“The truth is—here is a new country, new people and new modes of behaviour. It appears that there is newness in the air, everywhere” (New China, 143)
July 7, 2022
A history of this subcontinent, woven in jute
The book reveals how in mid-19th century colonial East Bengal jute first emerged “as a global commodity”
March 26, 2022
Bangabandhu and Bangladesh’s Landscapes
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was rooted in the land and loved Bangladesh’s natural features. He wanted them to be as they were—green, open spaces full of water bodies and flora and fauna.
February 26, 2022
Jibanananda Das’ “Ananto jibon jodi pai ami”
If I get to live forever— then forever, I’ll be all alone— If I return to the paths of the world, I’ll see green grass Sprouting—will see yellow grass scattering— the sky Whitening in the morning—like a tattered munia bird, Breast blood-stained in the evening—again and again I’ll see stars And view a strange woman untying braided hair and leaving Alas, her face devoid of traces of the setting sun’s soft glow
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