June 21, 2022
The Myth of the Strong Woman
Years ago, when I was about eight-years-old, I heard a teacher say that a woman’s lungs are stronger than a man’s.
May 28, 2022
Excerpts from Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Hena
I had to come to this dense forest yesterday. I have no clue why we had to fall back. This is the beauty of military life-- the order comes and you have to do it. You can never ask, “Why do I have to do it?”
April 23, 2022
Parallel Realities, Peripheral Existences: Saikat Majumdar’s The Middle Finger
The intriguing image of a woman’s eye peering through a hole cut into the glossy book jacket suggests that there is more to Saikat Majumdar’s The Middle Finger than meets the eye.
March 5, 2022
A Conversation with Saikat Majumdar
DS. To some readers the title of your most recent novel The Middle Finger may sound controversial. But as I discovered while reading, it focuses on something very different. Why did you choose this title?
February 19, 2022
Remembering Prof. Rafiqul Islam
He did not look at me once. His eyes were engrossed in deep thought; to me he seemed to be dipping in the deep waters of memory. Bent with age, he sat at his desk.
December 25, 2021
Romancing Wuthering Heights
In popular culture, if not in criticism, Wuthering Heights stands as the tale of love lost in betrayal and a grand reunion in the afterworld. The
December 18, 2021
Kolimoddi Dafadaar
The banks along the river Shitalakshya flooded on a regular basis. During the rainy season, most villages around the area turned into islands.
November 27, 2021
Silence, a Cross-dresser from Medieval Europe
I came across Heldris de Cornuälle’s Silence in 2011, a hundred years after its discovery in 1911. Dated to the early
October 30, 2021
Motherhood and Sylvia Plath’s Three Women
While students of literature are most often advised not to ponder over the personal lives of authors, it is almost impossible to do that in the case of Sylvia Plath.
September 11, 2021
Obhoy’s Insomnia
An abrupt noise woke Obhoy up in the middle of the night and throughout the rest of the night his eyelids would not shut. What was the matter with him? He had been sound asleep; then suddenly he woke up as if someone was battering at the gate of his senses.