Shahriar Shaams

Shahriar Shaams has written for SUSPECT, Third Lane Mag (forthcoming), Commonwealth Writers’ Adda, Six Seasons Review, and Jamini. Find him on twitter @shahriarshaams.

Despair and death in ‘Truth or Dare’

Bangladeshi literature in English has had a considerably late start compared to its South Asian counterparts in India and Pakistan. A few exceptions aside, a consistency came to be seen only by the early 2010s.

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In search of American freedoms

Increasingly over the years, American literary fiction has centered upon rage—a rage brought on by family, one’s own identity or, through the very cruelty of economic catastrophe.

An underwhelming kidnapping

Perhaps the book's biggest fault is that it ends up being (unintentionally or not) a response to Nabokov’s Lolita.

The records of resilience

Much of the reminiscences in The Murti Boys encompass the grittiness of staving off the Pakistanis with little weaponry and a great deal of quick thinking. 

The occult thrills of ‘The Centre’

Rarely does a book arrive, a debut no less, that feels as inventive and accomplished as Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre. Her novel is built on the crossroads of interpretation and ownership, of the power of language and of those privileged enough to reclaim it.

The minority report in India

In Another India, Pratinav Anil unambiguously faults Nehruvian secularism—the very mantle championed by historians such as Mushirul Hasan for whom “the congress best represented the Muslim interests from the fifties on.”

The straight and narrow vision of ‘Crook Manifesto’

Colson Whitehead’s sequel to his novel Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday, 2021) is a continuation of the exact same order.

The pirates of Madagascar

In this posthumous effort, 'Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), Graeber posits, in characteristic fashion, that the Enlightenment would not have happened if not for the pirates around the Malagasy coast.

November 23, 2023
November 23, 2023

Despair and death in ‘Truth or Dare’

Bangladeshi literature in English has had a considerably late start compared to its South Asian counterparts in India and Pakistan. A few exceptions aside, a consistency came to be seen only by the early 2010s.

October 19, 2023
October 19, 2023

In search of American freedoms

Increasingly over the years, American literary fiction has centered upon rage—a rage brought on by family, one’s own identity or, through the very cruelty of economic catastrophe.

October 13, 2023
October 13, 2023

An underwhelming kidnapping

Perhaps the book's biggest fault is that it ends up being (unintentionally or not) a response to Nabokov’s Lolita.

September 19, 2023
September 19, 2023

The records of resilience

Much of the reminiscences in The Murti Boys encompass the grittiness of staving off the Pakistanis with little weaponry and a great deal of quick thinking. 

September 14, 2023
September 14, 2023

The occult thrills of ‘The Centre’

Rarely does a book arrive, a debut no less, that feels as inventive and accomplished as Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre. Her novel is built on the crossroads of interpretation and ownership, of the power of language and of those privileged enough to reclaim it.

August 28, 2023
August 28, 2023

The minority report in India

In Another India, Pratinav Anil unambiguously faults Nehruvian secularism—the very mantle championed by historians such as Mushirul Hasan for whom “the congress best represented the Muslim interests from the fifties on.”

August 10, 2023
August 10, 2023

The straight and narrow vision of ‘Crook Manifesto’

Colson Whitehead’s sequel to his novel Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday, 2021) is a continuation of the exact same order.

July 5, 2023
July 5, 2023

The pirates of Madagascar

In this posthumous effort, 'Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), Graeber posits, in characteristic fashion, that the Enlightenment would not have happened if not for the pirates around the Malagasy coast.

June 19, 2023
June 19, 2023

Cormac McCarthy: A great American novelist

For a nation that cannot boast of a Cervantes or Rabindranath, there will always be a need to find an All-American, a unifier who assures them of their place in the hallowed halls of literature. Cormac McCarthy, more than any other writer of his generation, was equipped to shoulder that title.

June 3, 2023
June 3, 2023

Like father, unlike son: Martin Amis’s place in literature

Perhaps Martin Amis’s works do not grab me for the most part because it veers too far away from the humanism of, say, Saul Bellow—a writer Martin greatly admires and has written about extensively.

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