literature
FICTION / Insomnia
You are wide awake again
ESSAY / Intertextuality in Shahaduz Zaman’s ‘Prithibite Hoyto Brihaspatibar’
Shahaduz Zaman stands out prominently as a significant figure in the contemporary Bangla literary landscape, utilising intertextuality throughout his works, and infusing various texts and genres into his narratives.
Schools need to rethink how they teach Literature
Schools must revamp literature education to foster creativity.
POETRY / Relaxed reminiscences
(For Lutfa, Nayeem, and Aarong Herbal Hair Pack)
EVENT REPORT / Sheikh Zayed Book Award announces winners for the 18th edition
The winners were announced on 4 April, 2024, with the ceremony being hosted by Sheikh Sultan bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, chairman of the SZBA Board of Trustees
What to expect if you want to major in Bangla
Majoring in Bangla promises a journey through a kaleidoscope of academic marvels.
#Literature / Rivers in fiction: A unique genre of Bengali literature
With hundreds of waterways spread all over the country like a spider’s web, it’s only natural that rivers play a notable part in our lives. There are numerous novels focused on our riverine traditions, enough to call it a genre by itself.
BOI MELA 2024 / Navigating the Ekushey Boi Mela
With rows upon rows of book stalls offering everything from timeless classics to contemporary bestsellers, navigating through this maze of books can be both exhilarating and overwhelming
POETRY / palestine is my grieving mother
rise, rise—now evening dies: sun-born in valleys with burning olive trees—where women like me plod one day at a time,
My London: An immigrant story
You land in London with £210 in your pocket. It is the year 2009. You are able to pay the first month’s rent for the room, but not the deposit. You have to share it with an acquaintance from Dhaka. He arrived a week prior.
RRReading
Even if you are not a film enthusiast, chances are high that you have watched the 2022 Telegu blockbuster RRR. At the very least, you should have heard about it.
The fearless, experimental poetry of Binoy Majumdar
As time passed by and as the poet made an introspection in seclusion, he dug up such verses which to the reader might feel like a revelation of truth.
The occult thrills of ‘The Centre’
Rarely does a book arrive, a debut no less, that feels as inventive and accomplished as Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre. Her novel is built on the crossroads of interpretation and ownership, of the power of language and of those privileged enough to reclaim it.
The brilliance of Bibhutibhushan: Of sensations, details, and accentual intimacy
Bibhuti Babu’s pen tenderly reveals the nudity of apparently disturbing feelings and emotions that we are so ashamed and afraid to accept and express.
Feeding desperation
Dickens, a literary luminary of his era, exposes the vicious cycle where hunger and desperation divide society, laying bare the inequities perpetuated by an exploitative system.
The alterities of hunger
In two of the more prominent fictional works that are part of the diasporic South Asian literary production, Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, food is presented as a conceptual apparatus that makes palatable the tensions of ‘multiculturalism’ and offers a critique of class barriers—if not always at the level of economics, but at the level of consciousness.
Dining at Oxbridge: “Formal”, please
I was a little anxious. It was only the second day of my life at the University of Cambridge, and I was already bombarded with instructions on how to dine.
jani dekha hobe
that single spot, shunyo, a hole that is filled to its circumference, I drive and the sun is bigger than I’ve ever seen and orange, look directly into it or, i had to write a poem to go along with the first
In the sand dunes
His face was growing warmer, it seemed as though the intangible entity that was stinging his closed eyes was growing stronger.
