Event Report / “We do not live outside history”: Dr. Azfar Hussain on humanism, fascism, and the July Uprising

26 July 2026, 16:24 PM ⁠⁠News
“It is one of those questions that politely pretends to be a title, but secretly aspires to be a life’s work,” began Dr. Azfar Hussain on an overcast evening on the July 23, 2026, addressing a packed forum hall at the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh (ULAB), alluding to the title of his public lecture: What Does It Mean to Be Human in the Age of 'Posthumanism' and Global Fascism?
Poetry / You ask me
25 July 2026, 00:00 AM ⁠⁠Poetry
Book Review: Fiction / The queen who would not stay dead
23 July 2026, 00:00 AM Books & Literature
Interview / Diaspora, national identity and reality TV with Pajtim Statovci
9 June 2026, 21:48 PM
Not every story ends with rejoicing. Not all questions are answered within one lifetime. Not everyone will get to fulfil their dreams. All my protagonists are incomplete until the end. And the end itself offers no catharsis. It’s the same darkness that was present when the reader met them the first time. I write about the world and the people within it the way I have experienced the world.
Event Report / Poetry collection Adivasi Premikar Mukh: The Portrait of an Adivasi Beloved launched at Bangla Academy
19 May 2026, 14:26 PM
The bilingual poetry collection Adivasi Premikar Mukh: The Portrait of an Adivasi Beloved, (Oitijjhya, 2026) by journalist, poet, and fiction writer Ehasan Mahamud was launched on Monday, May 18, at the Kabi Shamsur Rahman Seminar Room of Bangla Academy, Dhaka. The event was organised by Oitijjhya Publications and moderated by Mostafa Mushfiq.

Qazi Anwar Husain, writer and founder of Sheba Prokashoni, no more

Renowned writer Kazi Anwar Hossain has passed away. He breathed his last at 4:40 pm today.
19 January 2022, 11:45 AM

UPL launches Samuel Jaffe’s book on grassroots activism in the Liberation War

In a live YouTube broadcast, University Press Limited (UPL) launched their book, An Internal Matter: The U.S., Grassroots Activism and the Creation of Bangladesh, written by Samuel Jaffe, at 7 PM on Saturday, January 15, 2022.
16 January 2022, 11:22 AM

From One Minute Past Midnight

I’m feeling a certain disenchantment.
14 January 2022, 18:00 PM

My Childhood World

The best part of my childhood was during the late fifties, attending Dacca Cantonment Primary School at Ayub Line.
14 January 2022, 18:00 PM

New books by favourite authors in the first quarter of 2022

Read an extended version of this list on The Daily Star website and on Daily Star Books’ Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
12 January 2022, 18:00 PM

Paulo Coelho, where are you?

I love it when Paulo Coelho’s books start with a challenge or a quest, and The Archer (Penguin Random House, 2020), accordingly, does not fail to open with an intriguing pursuit.  Upon reading the prologue, I thought I was in for a good read; it was rich and humorous, and in line with the writer’s usual mystical tone.
12 January 2022, 18:00 PM

Why Haruki Murakami resonates with young readers

Haruki Murakami is perhaps one of the most celebrated and well known writers of not only Japan but all of contemporary literature. His writing is humorous, hypnotic,
12 January 2022, 18:00 PM

For the Love of Tea

My baby boy snatches my empty tea mug from me and starts licking it. He was given the last few drops of tea from the mug and now he wants more. He puts his hand inside the mug, gets the boiled tea dust into his fist, inserts them in his mouth and starts chewing furiously.
7 January 2022, 18:00 PM

Facts, Fabulism, and Fantasy: Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte

Few authors would attempt a task as daunting as borrowing a seventeenth-century masterpiece Don Quixote from Spanish to English and setting it up on twenty-first-century United States. Given his dexterity with fabulism and experimental fiction, Salman Rushdie accepts the task with aplomb.
7 January 2022, 18:00 PM

From the minarets, all their dark secrets revealed

Certain identities can strip people of their right to identify as humans. These people find their existence undesired, their rights, freedom, choices unguarded.
5 January 2022, 18:00 PM

I can’t finish reading books. Should I stop trying?

I struggle to finish books. Well, one can even say I struggle to read, if you think a good reader is someone who finishes the books they pick up.
5 January 2022, 18:00 PM

Of noodles and nostalgia

“Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart”, reads the stark opening line in Michelle Zauner’s 2021 memoir, Crying in H Mart (Knopf), starting the
5 January 2022, 18:00 PM

An easy guide to maintaining an aesthetic bookstagram feed

From finding the right props to setting up a shoot, the many ways of curating an interesting Instagram profile can be easier than it appears to be. 
3 January 2022, 09:28 AM

Revisiting Hogwarts: Harry Potter's 20th Anniversary

The nearly two-hour-long special felt like being splashed in the face with a potion that induces nostalgia.
2 January 2022, 12:50 PM

A BalkanTale

I was then working as a military observer in Sarajevo, and visiting Zagreb for some official purpose. Jean Marc, one of my French colleagues
31 December 2021, 18:00 PM

Ah, storytelling!

Do the smooth muscles of narrative hold a deceptive appeal? Does the temporality of a story do more harm than good? One of the most intriguing stories in Aesop’s Fables, seems to think so – a fascinating story that is a good example of an anti-story!
31 December 2021, 18:00 PM

What The Daily Star read in 2021

As we near the year’s end, the Star Books Team asks the different sections of The Daily Star about the most interesting books that they would recommend to their readers this year.
29 December 2021, 18:00 PM

DS Books’ favourite reads of 2021

Sri Lankan author, Anuk Arudpragasam’s Booker-shortlisted second novel, travels through the haunted landscapes of Sri Lanka. The
29 December 2021, 18:00 PM

Andy Weir's latest in science fiction: Humanity’s hail mary to save itself

Earth is doomed. A mysterious microorganism called Astrophage is eating away the sun’s energy. If you are concerned about the planet
29 December 2021, 18:00 PM

Is economics passé? On Wahiduddin Mahmud’s new book, ‘Markets, Morals and Development’

As the world nears the second quarter of the 21st century, some of the nagging questions we still face in the world of socio-economic
29 December 2021, 18:00 PM
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