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.

‘The book is a handicraft product’: BUET’s ‘Studio X’

"[This] is an important collection of work to be made available to the architecture, planning and engineering community as a key cornerstone of continuing to build Bangladesh", Transcom GCEO Simeen Rahman writes in her foreword. 
9 February 2023, 11:08 AM

Evil and the divine in Dostoevsky’s ‘The Brothers Karamazov’

Despite my own lack of belief in divine providence, Dostoevsky's damning portrayal of the vacuum created in a world where ideas such as religion, spirituality and faith take a backseat made me challenge my own ideas about the source of our moral conduct and made me weigh the benefits of lingering onto faith.
9 February 2023, 09:40 AM

Revisiting indigenous folktales at Dhaka Art Summit

“We wanted to share the story in our native language, just the way we heard it from our elders", said Kanak Chanpa Chakma.
8 February 2023, 14:07 PM

Salman Rushdie releases new novel six months after stabbing attack

"All I've seen is his idiotic interview in the New York Post," said Rushdie about his attacker. "Which only an idiot would do."
8 February 2023, 10:30 AM

Bengali ‘anti-novelist’ Subimal Misra no more

Bengali author Subimal Misra, 80, breathed his last at 4:50 AM on Wednesday. 
8 February 2023, 08:49 AM

'I sit down to write, and nothing happens': Salman Rushdie

"I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk", Salman Rushdie tells New Yorker's David Remnick.
6 February 2023, 16:20 PM

AI generated Bangladeshi comic ‘Manobjatir Grohon’: An initiative with potential

We find out that civilisation underwent the threat of extinction, where only a few survived. About 100 years later, Anika, a 19-year-old girl, comes across an orb-like glowing “machine” that is meant to “change the fate of the current humanity forevermore.”
6 February 2023, 13:29 PM

The untapped potential of our public libraries

There are few public libraries across the city which can be considered to have a decent book collection in both Bangla and English.
5 February 2023, 14:42 PM

The bookstore in the park: Bookworm opens in Gulshan 2

“The books launched and discussed at the Dhaka Lit Fest are on their way”, store owner Amina Rahman informed Daily Star Books.
5 February 2023, 12:35 PM

For the love of notebooks

"We want to use this space as a medium to connect our readers with products that accompany their habit of reading."
5 February 2023, 08:06 AM

‘Boi Mela will return to its previous glory’, says Sadat Hossain after first weekend of the fair

Crowds intensified from 4:30 PM on Friday as booklovers and literature enthusiasts from all across the city gathered to have their first sights of the beloved Boi Mela in its first weekend. 
5 February 2023, 05:09 AM

‘It feels like a living thing’: The House on RK Mission Road

When I think of the thick limestone walls of the house now I think of the essence of the generations of our family that it has absorbed.
4 February 2023, 15:14 PM

Hopes, disappointments and this year’s Ekushey Boi Mela

"I don’t believe that we will get redress from the government in this matter. The only way out is a total reform of the state": Altaf Parvez, writer and researcher.
4 February 2023, 08:54 AM

The world of Colleen Hoover does not warrant celebration

Depiction of such problematic forms of ‘romance’ and relationships surely distort the judgement of readers regarding love and romance.
3 February 2023, 18:00 PM

In Ireland once: A story of ghosts

Are ghosts real? This was the question Mollie, a little 8-year-old girl who lives at the end of our street asked me in a–real–letter she wrote me recently. I had apparently included a book of ghost stories in a bag of books I had given her.
3 February 2023, 18:00 PM

Book adaptations to look forward to in 2023

The live-action rock series follows the rise of a rock band through the 1970s Los Angeles music scene as they embark on a quest for worldwide fame.
3 February 2023, 09:53 AM

Song of the Sky: Nonfiction inspired by Joyce

The dance of the tongue is just as beautiful as the word itself. Effulgent wind, effulgent rain of twilight moon, effulgent sky.
2 February 2023, 13:00 PM

Abdus Selim’s poetry compilation of the ‘60s is a time machine

Abdus Selim’s translation and compilation is a time machine for all of us living in the new age, where poems have become much neutered.
2 February 2023, 09:28 AM

One life, and a history of two economies: Mirza Nurul Huda

His is an inspiring tale of a little boy with big dreams rising from the backwaters of Bengal to become a fabled student who went on to be a professor of Dhaka University, and to hold some of the highest offices in public service.
2 February 2023, 08:14 AM

Surviving in a stagnant industry: What are emerging publishers doing differently?

Preexisting publishers are struggling to sustain in the market since the Covid-19 and the recent rise in paper prices. How are smaller and emerging publishers faring? 
2 February 2023, 07:56 AM
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