FLASH FICTION / Chand raat at Mohakhali

The poems in this ambitious collection are by women poets writing in Bangla, who have emerged from the land that is now Bangladesh—having lived, or are still living here, or are now part of the first-generation diaspora.

Why is Wordle so addictive and why are a lot of people so obsessed with it?

Tongues and Bellies, published by Linen Press (2021), is described by its blurb as an anthology where “sensual and surprising stories play a tantalising game of hide and seek with lies and truth”.

Chevening scholar, author, and head of business development at The Daily Star, Shuvashish Roy, has published his first work of fiction, Chamakiya O Biggani Bhajaghata (Gyankosh Prokashoni, 2022), released at the Ekushey Boi Mela this year. 

Ranjana Biswas, an essayist and researcher, received the award at a ceremony held on March 22 at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Dhaka. 

Rokte Anka Bhor begins by depicting the events of the night of 25th March of 1971 and ends with Bangabandhu’s return home on 10th January 1972. Anisul Hoque has not merely recorded a series of historical events. History can become monotonous, but Rokte Anka Bhor becomes personal and meaningful through moving narration and fragments of history.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was rooted in the land and loved Bangladesh’s natural features. He wanted them to be as they were—green, open spaces full of water bodies and flora and fauna.

Neil Armstrong’s “giant leap for mankind” comes to mind while reading Hemayet Uddin’s Diplomacy in Obscurity: A Memoir (University Press Limited, 2021).

17 April, 1971. I reached Kolkata from Agartala on the previous day. Word reaches me that Zahir Raihan has also arrived at Kolkata on the same day.

This year’s Boi Mela was special to me. Growing up, I was never too sold on the hype around the fair—there were always too many crowds;

Lesedi is not “right in the head”. He avoids talking and discards words that do not make sense to him like garbage.

Complexity in any area of law leads to specialization. But it also comes with the risk of tunnel vision, of failing to visualize the bigger picture.

We get to know only so much about what happens around us until literature takes an interest in it. The same would have happened with the shutdown of the jute mill in Khulna, nearly two decades ago, if a novel like Kalchakra (Annesha Prokashon, 2018) had not presented it to us.

Can there be decisive action without discourse, even if it takes the form of one or two conversations between friends in a work of fiction?

The Story of A Brief Marriage (2016) focuses on portraying the intricacies of alienation and uncertainty through the story of Dinesh, who has survived  the Sri Lankan civil war. 

Cousins Faiza Shabnam and Bibha Habiba Haque, students of Class 4 in Dhaka’s Scholastica school, have written a novella about three space travelling teenagers. 

Come, let’s smoke a cigarette together on a dark veranda and count how many flats

Approaching International Women’s Day 2022, the unnerving visual of the Ukrainian parliamentarian Kira Rudyk wielding a Kalashnikov that she finds both “scary and powerful,” is in reality a dynamic redefinition of women’s participation in national struggles.

All these years walls of our town stood tall, home to white-winged birds, nostalgic sun, tales too deep for us to tell; last night walls came down crashing,

Pita (Father), a novel written by Faiz Tauhidul Islam, is a saga of two fathers and their two estranged grown-up children. It is a gripping tale that takes the readers on a journey of anticipation and uncertainty. The plot line is full of twists and turns which make the reading often a guessing game and an engrossing experience.