Ahmed shared his journey with Netra News and his undercover work for them shedding light on the countless enforced disappearances that took place in the country during Hasina’s regime.
The quote above seems to capture the heart of this novel set in a near-future dystopian Kolkata rendered uninhabitable by political corruption, inequality, and the ominous package of climate crisis–floods, famine, overheating.
Approximately 105 people die every minute globally. This is nothing but data until in some specific wretched minute, someone dear to us adds a plus one to that digit. When those we love die, their losses dig enormous holes in our beings. Though invisible to the physical eye, these freshly cut hollows ache like any deep wound would, they bleed out more blood than we carry in our veins. A severe soreness spreads over us without any remedies, without offering us a recovery timeline. There is no telling when grieving ends or if it ever actually does.
The 2025 Booker Prize longlist was revealed on Tuesday, July 29, showcasing a diverse ensemble of literary brilliance, with novels that spanned continents, genres, and narrative styles
Graffiti has long played a powerful role in revolutions around the world. From the walls of Paris in 1968 to the slogans of the Arab Spring, street art has served as one of the most immediate and accessible forms of resistance.
Literary experts often caution against writing a novel immediately after a major political upheaval, arguing that personal involvement may cloud objectivity.
Review of Mitali Chakravarty’s ‘From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams: Poems’ (Hawakal Publishers Pvt Ltd, 2025)
The cats don't always understand the human specifics, but they recognise sadness. They notice routines. And most of all, they stay
and for every grave / a firefly burns / and for every grave / Dhaka never learns
Scorching in a way the April sun never was. / Scorching in a way a fever never feels. / It wasn't just grief
Review of ‘Jodi Lokkho Thake Otut: Shafolyer Khola Koushol’ (Anyaprokash, 2025) by Asif Iqbal
Review of ‘The Last Bench’ (Ekadā, 2025) by Adhir Biswas
“Art is empathy,” Fredrik Backman writes. So is friendship—the kind that stays with you long after the summer ends.The kind you find when you’re 14 and everything is breaking and beginning at once. The kind of friendship that becomes a map back to yourself, years later, when you’re lost in grief, guilt, or even just the quiet ache of growing up. Fredrik Backman’s My Friends is a love letter to those friendships.
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
A stunning meditation on some of the concepts that haunt our present moment—humanity and moralism, Zionism today, democracy and imperialism and perhaps most significantly, the question that lies at the very heart of the human condition: what does it mean
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.
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
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
Now, two decades later, the question lingers: Did "Guts" really cause waves of fainting spells, or did the legend grow legs of its own?
Throughout my school years, Ammu would assign a different writer for me to read during each vacation
In a lecture, Rabindranath proclaimed, “I hope that some dreamer will spring from among you and preach a message of love and therewith, overcoming all differences..."
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
Remembering the stateless poet Daud Haider
'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies'
Every night, a market forms near the mill gate. When it’s time for that market to close, Fulbanu stands on the high bank of the pond, waiting for her husband’s return.
Saiyara didn’t wave a flag to voice her rights on the streets. She had never marched in a protest line, never chanted beneath the dark blanket of smoke-heavy skies. Her revolution was quieter, and it carried a little soul swaddled in a bassinet beside her, traces of milk on her lips and dreaming
Mira presses her thumb on the cracked power button of her phone.
As Fulbanu waited for Syed Ali, she thought about her only son, Suruj. She remembered that Suruj was the first man among five neighbouring villages to acquire his bachelor's degree
When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.
Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.
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?"
Do you remember the sunset on the 18th of July? What colour was it?
Summer has imprinted crow’s feet under my eyes, .Yet I have aged only a quarter. .That’s was when .I dunked myself—starting with the crown of my head—into the ocean where The southern sun resides, to imprint upon my face its sheen, .rhythm of miracles, and to honour it wi
Always the same whining about the distances, always the same
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
Patience, like moss, that grows on red soil. Conversations with friends, like inadequate breakfast.
When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.
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”
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.
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.
It would rain in the rains / And the rest of this poem would be written by someone else
Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.
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.
