books
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...
ULAB Press launches 'Commemorating Sheikh Mujib’
On the morning of Thursday, October 7, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh saw the launch of ULAB Press with its maiden publication, Commemorating Sheikh Mujib: The Greatest Bengali of the...
Immigrant experience in focus: Abdulrazak Gurnah wins Nobel in Literature
Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has just been announced as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of...
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...
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...
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...
Anindita Ghose's 'The Illuminated': Can widowhood be freeing?
Long after I was done reading The Illuminated (HarperCollins India, 2021), by Anindita Ghose, I kept thinking about Girl in White Cotton (2020) by Avni Doshi. If one had to choose any recent novel...
I remember Kamla Bhasin through her children’s books
Words fall short to describe Kamla Bhasin: how does one begin to describe a force of nature like her? Perhaps the simplest way to do so is with the word ‘love’. Kamla was many things to many people...
Free books for everyone—A hawker’s selfless dream
A hawker in Jhenidah, with his own hard-earned money, has established a self-made library at his house in College Para area under Kaliganj municipality.
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.
Shelley Parker-Chan’s 'She Who Became The Sun': A song of identity and fate
Identity is mercurial: it shifts and morphs into a new being at the change of a breeze. That change is glacial, and often happens on its own volition; but one can also grasp a new identity, hold it...