Lucy Foley’s ‘The Guest List’: Murder and intrigue at a secret celebrity wedding
The Guest List is a classic who-dun-it murder mystery, reminiscent of Dame Agatha Christie’s stories. Lucy Foley’s second novel takes us to a lavish celebrity wedding on a remote island off-coast of Ireland.
A TERRESTRIAL OMNIBUS: When the Mango Tree Blossomed
When the Mango Tree Blossomed is a voluminous compilation of, as the book’s subtitle proclaims, fifty short stories from Bangladesh, edited by Niaz Zaman.
On a Long-Awaited Critical Anthology of Bangladeshi Literature in English
For anyone with academic or amateurish interest in Bangladeshi writings in English this must be a long-awaited book. The publication of Mohammad A Quayum and Md. Mahmudul Hasan–edited Bangladeshi Literature in English: A Critical Anthology (July 2021), possibly the first-ever of its kind, thus came as a welcome piece of news, and I congratulate the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on publishing it in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, this three-hundred-page useful collection with befitting hardcover and flawless compose.
Pandemic Musings Anthropocene: climate change, contagion, consolation
Sudeep Sen’s Anthropocene is the third work on the subject by an Indian writer that I have come across in recent years, but it is truly sui generis.
Brandon Taylor’s ‘Real Life’—It’s seldom fair.
Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (Riverhead Books, 2020) begins with the protagonist, Wallace, contemplating his father’s death and feeling lonely amongst his friends because they do not understand the experiences he has had. The novel’s exploration of “real life” over the course of a weekend is also one that unpacks identity, race, sexuality, and the sheer boredom and frustration of postgraduate life.
Revisiting 'The Bell Jar': a feminist masterpiece that reverberates through time
Vivid imagery and symbolism of deep human emotion are found throughout Plath’s novel, as the readers are allowed a look into the mind of a 19-year-old girl who is trapped in the kind of society where women are perceived only as objects of desire and vessels for procreation.
In "Taxi Wallah", Numair Atif Chowdhury takes us, once more, through the cartography of a homeland
The version of Bangladesh we received in Babu Bangladesh (2019) was astonishing.
Matthew Salesses demystifies the craft of writing
Storytelling is a space in which, as writers and readers, we experience the ways of how we know the world and interact with it.
Tanveer Anoy explores gender roles and identities in his second novel, ‘Duradhay’
Tanveer Anoy’s second novel, Duradhay (Anandam, 2021), felt like a punch to my stomach; a wake up call, to be more precise.
Abdulrazak Gurnahs 'Afterlives': The repercussions of colonialism, unveiled
Abdulrazak Gurnah, this year’s Nobel laureate in literature, seems to come as an admirable choice compared to the Nobel Prize’s controversial recent history.