Ujan Book Review Contest 2021 announces winners, reviews Korean literature in translation
Participants reviewed Bangla translations of two significant works of Korean literature—Korear Kobita (Korean Poetry) translated by Chhanda Mahbub, and Korear Golpo (Short Stories of Korea), edited...
Breakthrough: A tale of love and prejudice
Suhail Aziz’s book, Breakthrough (Book Guild, 2020), is a memoir of a British Bengali and his intertwined personal story of love and prejudice. Aziz is best known within the UK Bengali community...
Is Bhashan Char really the answer to the Rohingya crisis?
Bhashan Char has lately become a topic of critical debate in the refugee relocation discourse. It is a reality that comes with a harsh reminder of demographic changes within the Rohingya refugee...
The latest from John Green: The American man’s anthropocene reviewed
If you are familiar with John Green, you might already know of the immense popularity of the New York Times bestselling author, widely popular for his YA fiction, and often dismissed by critics for...
Anuk Arudpragasam's 'A Passage North': Requiem for the textures of time, violent and tender
Sand, water, memory—the grainy, elusive grace they share pervades the experiences making up Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam’s second novel, A Passage North (Hamish Hamilton, 2021), shortlisted...
UPL launches Dr Masum Billah's new book on poverty and land law
The Politics of Land Law: Poverty and Land Legislation in Bangladesh (University Press Ltd, 2021), a book by Dr Masum Billah, Associate Professor of Jagannath University, was launched in a virtual...
Ali Smith's 'Autumn': Many shades of a golden season
Fifteen pages into Ali Smith’s Autumn—the first installment of the Seasonal Quartet, we are introduced to the protagonist (to the extent they exist in her books), Elisabeth.
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s ‘Mapping Love’: A roller coaster ride of love, loss, and longing
Oorja, as her name suggests, is a bright young girl who is the main protagonist of the story. The novel begins with her travelling back to India after her mother’s demise. She reaches home only to...
Tarana Husain Khan's 'The Begum and the Dastan': Patriarchy is a labyrinth that defies time
I am convinced that while writing her book, The Begum and the Dastan (Westland Publications, 2021), Tarana Husain Khan’s aim was to leave her readers in a literary stupor, dizzy and yearning for...
JCB Prize for Literature announces 2021 longlist
The annual competition, which has been hailed as “India's most valuable literature prize”, offers INR 2,500,000 (USD 35,000) to its winner for distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer...
Hardback edition released of ‘Inherited Memories’, Goethe-Institut and Zubaan Books’ project on the 1947 partition
Zubaan Books has released a hardback edition of Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East, concerning the still-felt ramifications of the 1947 partition.
Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’: Fragments of an uprooted people
The people we meet in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees (Viking, 2021) are haunted by terrible tragedies from several years past, by a beautiful island divided into two.
