Sohana Manzoor

Sohana Manzoor is the Editor of the Star Literature page.

The Writer

The lad appeared to be very humble and slowly took a seat. But I noticed that he did not take his eyes off my face even once. He kept on staring at me through his glasses.

Sari - The changing tale of draping

In the current fashion world, the sari, a traditional female garment of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka is all the rage.

Ghosts in Bangla literature and culture

“Bhoot”, the Bangla word for ghost, derives from the Sanskrit word Bhūta, referring to living beings and the past. Later, it also came to mean ‘disembodied spirit.’ Ghost stories carry a special tradition in Bangla literature and the root lies in folklore and rural culture.

Abul Mansur Ahmad (1898- 1979)

A politician and journalist by profession, Abul Mansur Ahmad began his career as a National Congress worker in Bengal.

Disrupted Nature and Community in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is well-known to the literary audience and beyond as the tale of a brilliant and mad scientist who created a horrible monster that in the end brought destruction for its creator.

The Great Divide that brought them together

While the Partition of 1947 is a chapter that historians are constantly bringing up, one question rarely explored is what does the Partition mean for the Millennials and Gen Zs? How much do our younger generations know of the significance of the Great Divide?

Shohorbanu

“Bhabi, do you remember Banu?” my paternal aunt Janu phupi asks Amma. We are in the middle of a grand celebration—I am getting married and today is my gaye-holud. My grandmother barks, “Don’t mention that ill-fated girl now. She tricked us all.”

May 28, 2022
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?”

May 7, 2022
May 7, 2022

From Rabindranath Tagore’s Chhinnapatra

Our boat was docked by a sandbank on the other side of Shelaidaha. It was a gigantic strip of sand where the contour of a river could be seen.

April 23, 2022
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.

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