essay
ESSAY / ‘The day begins wrong’: Mastering tension and suspense in fiction
In my creative writing classes, whether at the University of Toronto or the Hermitage Residency in Bangladesh, I emphasise that any student of fiction must first master suspense
ESSAY / The English-Bangla conundrum continues
When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.
ESSAY / To read as an academic: The transformative journey of a reader turned student
I became curious as to how the experience of reading might change for someone who studied it for a living, and how the lens of a literature student might differ from that of a creative writing one
ESSAY / Between falling and failing
Although there is much merit to the representation of women’s pain, the evolution of the heavily aestheticised “sad girl” trope in popular culture has started to make a mawkish caricature of real women’s suffering
ESSAY / The promises and pitfalls of decolonial thinking
The craze that once prevailed in academia over postcolonialism no longer seems to hover around there anymore.
ESSAY / “Dostoevsky” by Ahmed Sofa
A translation of Ahmed Sofa's essay on Dostoyevsky
ESSAY / Romance and unfulfillment in the past and the present
Much like most media geared toward women, romance novels have frequently received flack for its supposed shallowness, absurdity, and flamboyancy.
ESSAY / On ‘Gaza Monologues, the Land of Sad Oranges’: A theatrical performance by Prachyanat
How do you attempt to understand testimonies of mass public trauma?
ESSAY / The first semester is your shitty first draft
Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.
‘The day begins wrong’: Mastering tension and suspense in fiction
In my creative writing classes, whether at the University of Toronto or the Hermitage Residency in Bangladesh, I emphasise that any student of fiction must first master suspense
The English-Bangla conundrum continues
When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.
To read as an academic: The transformative journey of a reader turned student
I became curious as to how the experience of reading might change for someone who studied it for a living, and how the lens of a literature student might differ from that of a creative writing one
Between falling and failing
Although there is much merit to the representation of women’s pain, the evolution of the heavily aestheticised “sad girl” trope in popular culture has started to make a mawkish caricature of real women’s suffering
The promises and pitfalls of decolonial thinking
The craze that once prevailed in academia over postcolonialism no longer seems to hover around there anymore.
“Dostoevsky” by Ahmed Sofa
A translation of Ahmed Sofa's essay on Dostoyevsky
Romance and unfulfillment in the past and the present
Much like most media geared toward women, romance novels have frequently received flack for its supposed shallowness, absurdity, and flamboyancy.
On ‘Gaza Monologues, the Land of Sad Oranges’: A theatrical performance by Prachyanat
How do you attempt to understand testimonies of mass public trauma?
The first semester is your shitty first draft
Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.
The controversial legacy of Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’
Readers often look for relatability in the stories and characters they are reading but Nabokov doesn’t give his readers that comfort or spoon feed them. Rather, he challenges them to eschew feeling compelled by Humbert’s justification of his innocence
