Bangladeshi literature
ESSAY / On wars and words
These words are not just some veils adorning the valour and victory of our freedom fighters; they're not just tributes but testaments to the rare occasion of the oppressed overpowering the oppressor.
“Fragile Things”: How ghosts and spirituality make it into writing
Participants, including the show’s hosts and guests, picked up discarded pebbles, photo frames, children’s artwork, and other knick knacks—all fragile things collected and displayed by the author.
Akhteruzzaman Elias: There is always an other to be purged
Shill edited the present volume as a rich collection of memories and evaluations of Akhteruzzaman Elias by his friends and relatives, some renowned literary figures of the Bangla language, as well as some occasional thoughts by Elias himself.
Boats against the current: Reconciling the Dhaka of old with the new
Nadeem Zaman’s The Inheritors retells and recontextualizes one of the most famous stories there ever was—F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).
Memories of Eid and ‘Dipu Number Two’
One of my most vivid memories growing up was discovering the joys of reading during one train journey to Rajshahi, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal's novel of childhood adventures
Dhaka’s Arman Chowdhury shortlisted for Commonwealth Short Story Prize ‘23
“Deficiency Notice” presents the daily life of an 11-year-old boy who is speech-impaired
THE SHELF / 5 new books to start the new year with
Someone has to pay the price when traditions, community beliefs, and environmental issues are unheeded.
INTERVIEW / In Iffat Nawaz’s debut novel, 1971 is not an open wound
Shurjo’s Clan uses magic realism to conjure Shurjomukhi’s freedom fighter uncles, who were martyred in Sylhet’s tea gardens during the 1971 Liberation War, and her grandmother, who took her own life shortly after the 1947 Partition.
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Life in modern Dhaka as portrayed in 'A Strange Coincidence and Other Stories'
The 11 short stories encompass a number of ideas, mainly the binary oppositions of the human psyche, all covering the inner conflicts of human life.
Kathaprokash celebrates author Mashrur Arefin's work
Four of Arefin’s novels have been published so far, alongside three books of poetry and critically acclaimed translations of the Iliad and of Kafka’s short stories.
Shaheen Akhtar’s ‘Beloved Rongomala’ (trans. Shabnam Nadiya) in a new edition from Westland Books
Based on an 18th century legend from Bangladesh’s Noakhali region, Beloved Ronglomala tells the story of one Queen Phuleswari, a child bride, and of Rongomala, a woman of legend.
'Bangladesh is divided along cultural fault lines', Professor Mohammad Azam discusses at Gyantaposh Abdur Razzak Foundation
The culture and traditions of the country have been colonised. Thoughts which originate in Kolkata are being accepted in Dhaka’s society without due consideration.
How I became Tamijer Baap in ‘Khowabnama’
I found myself looking for him beyond the pages of Elias's novel, among the old men who beg on the streets of Dhaka, or in the madman lying on the footpath, trying to say something in a huff or lost in a hallucination on the open road.
In ‘Nehai’, Yusuf Muhammad’s doha verses explore the ceaselessness of life
The aim of a dohakar has always been to open the eyes of the masses. Many of the dohas written by the two prominent dohakars, Soroho-Pa and Kabir Das, have modernist, anti-establishment themes, criticising the social, political and religious conventions of their times.
A deep dive into a poet’s mind
He had lost touch almost completely with his craft, so much so that he wondered if he even had it in him. But even so, for the sake of writing, he wrote. When the pandemic hit, Helal batted off the dust of his desk and sat down to write. Sitting from a foreign land, the ink flowed again.
Syed Waliullah: husband, artist, thinker, writer
The book includes excerpts from Syed Waliullah's diary, snapshots of his editorial for Contemporary magazine, handwritten edits on his pieces for Shaogat magazine, and a comprehensive bibliography of the author's work and achievements.
Humayun Ahmed and the language of Bangladeshi novels
His written language came close to spoken language due to the primitive and original style of Bengali syntax—simple sentence structures.
Mundanities, magic realism, Bangladesh—Shahidul Zahir’s novellas
The personal space is the same as the political sphere, the individual on the same strand as the collective.
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.
