Star Literature
POETRY / A building, a tree, and a kid
Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.
POETRY / Saree
The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower
FICTION / The man who dug his own grave
Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.
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.
POETRY / Heartache
I’m going through a heartbreak
POETRY / Cyan is my name when I talk about you
I'm tired of living with this nagging thought that we'll cross paths someday, /You and I
FICTION / The chasm
At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.
FICTION / Konokbari
Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.
POETRY / The hills
They say the hills have eyes Iridescent, all knowing, and deathlike.
White-eyed Corpse
The beast bellowed below Mushfiq’s bedroom window, propelling rushes of tingles within him. He smiled.
Patuatuli and a young girl’s love for glasses
My love affair with spectacles has long been regarded by my mother as nothing but a symptom of my dramatic nature.
Payback time
I’m not sure when I first realised that we’d met before. In the beginning, you were just the elderly man I often noticed pottering around our communal rooftop.
Inside
She’s as real as my meandering/ As tangible as tinkering.
Cleaner of dawn
She doesn’t need an alarm For the last hour of the night.
Olives
Seven feet of mud swept water, /Bodies under rubble.
Hidden battle
Her Kohl-rimmed eyes, dangling earrings,/ The chiffon scarf, the satin silk shirt
Mr Moti
The monsoons have passed. Moti has grown so healthy, so strong and so big that no other cocks even dare to be near him.
Stargazing with the Bossanova man
“It’s a type of Brazilian music, this elevator is playing The Girl From Ipanema.”
THE OTHER WAY ROUND
What makes You a boy, me a girl; Me a popper, you an Earl?
