Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

A Sonata has three major parts: exposition, development and recapitulation.

Han Kang’s atmospheric novel, The Vegetarian (Portobello, 2016), is an evocative look at the psychosis of a woman plagued by her own humanity. In a masterstroke,

Cleghorn pairs her personal experiences and traces through history how women's bodies have been taught to be hidden and shamed, instead of being taken as what it is—a biological entity.

Hasan Azizul Haque, who passed away on November 15, 2021, began his career with the publication of the short story “Shokun” in 1960, and since its publication till today, it has shocked and stupefied most readers who have found their way to this unique and masterfully crafted story—reading it is not an experience one forgets easily, or ever.

For anyone with academic or amateurish interest in Bangladeshi writings in English this must be a long-awaited book. The publication of Mohammad A Quayum and Md. Mahmudul Hasan–edited Bangladeshi Literature in English: A Critical Anthology (July 2021), possibly the first-ever of its kind, thus came as a welcome piece of news, and I congratulate the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on publishing it in the midst of the ongoing pandemic, this three-hundred-page useful collection with befitting hardcover and flawless compose.

Sudeep Sen’s Anthropocene is the third work on the subject by an Indian writer that I have come across in recent years, but it is truly sui generis.

Ekushey Padak-winning author Hasan Azizul Haque passed away on November 15, at his residence in Rajshahi. He was 82.

After the low turnout at Amar Ekushey Boi Mela this year, the Academic and Creative Publishers Association of Bangladesh hosted a discussion seminar on November 16, with notable authors, publishers, and media personalities as special guests, in order to ensure a smooth experience for all attendees in the coming year.

The first traceable progeny of the lineage, Syed Fida Hussain, had settled in Delhi during the reign of the fourth Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, with his son, Syed Golam Hussain and his grandsons, Syed Faizuddin Hussain and Syed Mozaffar Hussain; they eventually moved to Kolkata and finally settled down in Dhaka.

Brandon Taylor’s Real Life (Riverhead Books, 2020) begins with the protagonist, Wallace, contemplating his father’s death and feeling lonely amongst his friends because they do not understand the experiences he has had. The novel’s exploration of “real life” over the course of a weekend is also one that unpacks identity, race, sexuality, and the sheer boredom and frustration of postgraduate life. 

Three days ago when I woke up in the morning to get ready for work, I stood on my balcony and felt a slight, familiar nip in the air.

On November 8, the High Commission of India hosted a book launching ceremony wherein the Bangla version of Operation X (HarperCollins Publishers India, 2019) was unveiled.

Bangladeshi publishing house Ujan Prokashan organised a book review contest where participants had to review Korean Literature on Monday, November 8.

Memoirs make for an intellectually absorbing reading. They belong to a different genre of literary creativity distinct from the tenor of “autobiography.”

In the slanting columns   of  the morning sun      on September›s grass, none came for me

I’ve seen many hues of yellow. Colorful, gray, unadorned. The pristine bokul podium, the vibrant spring awash with the fragrance of yellowy brilliance, the mournful memory of my adolescent day—the wedding ceremony of “Aaj Amenar Gaye Holud,”

A book’s epigraph usually either leaves you droplets of hints of what’s to come or purposefully perplexes, with abstract quotes that leave you feeling rather than knowing.

Black Milk is an autobiographical documentation of Shafak's hesitation, anxiety, perplexity, and self-discovery as she is about to enter the phase of motherhood.

Sanjena Sathian’s debut novel, Gold Diggers (Penguin Press, 2021), is set in an Indian American enclave within suburban Atlanta, a pressure-

Sharing my night In this mild low light, With ice and fire, Puzzled by the riddle of the gyre, Hiding behind you By turning into your shadow,  Hiding from what or whom I really don’t know.