Essay / A humanist in the age of AI

8 August 2026, 00:00 AM Books & Literature
For centuries, literature asked us to believe that language is more than information, that it’s a rich repository of history, memory, grief, longing, humour, silence, and entire ways of seeing and making sense of the world.
Event Report / Dhaka Zine Mela 2026: A celebration of creativity and community
11 June 2026, 17:39 PM
On June 6 and 7, 2026, at Goethe-Institut, Dhanmondi, Zine Mela Dhaka 2026 was held, organised by Sister Library (Dhaka) and Colors Publishing. The two-day event brought together independent artists, writers, and creators to celebrate self-publishing, artistic expression, and community engagement.
Interview / Diaspora, national identity and reality TV with Pajtim Statovci
9 June 2026, 21:48 PM
Not every story ends with rejoicing. Not all questions are answered within one lifetime. Not everyone will get to fulfil their dreams. All my protagonists are incomplete until the end. And the end itself offers no catharsis. It’s the same darkness that was present when the reader met them the first time. I write about the world and the people within it the way I have experienced the world.

WORDS THAT HEAL: The comfort of literature in times of mental duress

For Mahera help came not only in the form of relatable characters, but also the physical comfort derived from holding onto a book. "I've carried a book or a Kindle with me during the worst times of my life. It's like a security blanket," she told me.
29 November 2018, 18:00 PM

5 lesser known classic novels by women

Literary classics are described as works of art that evoke certain emotions and brings forth extremely important themes through the authors' brilliantly deduced philosophy on life and human behaviour.
28 November 2018, 18:00 PM

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018: Shortlist Announced

In an article early this month we presented the story in brief behind the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the longlist of 2018. The story has indeed progressed further since then.
23 November 2018, 18:00 PM

The Haven Searchers

I often see death hovering above everything, sticking out its tentacles, and taking someone in its mouth on a whim. Its belly is swollen with the lives it has consumed and its mouth drips with the sorrows of those. It is an invisible (to the mortals) aerial creature. It flies fast despite being so heavy. It is omnipresent, and in the ocean, it is as visible as a boat shaped moon on a mirror-like pond.
23 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Toy-cart

I was just up from bed; even the sun was not quite high yet. Some shalik birds were quarreling on top of the trees near the backyard gate and I was wondering how to ask mother for the plantain chops that were kept in the shika from last night's dinner.
23 November 2018, 18:00 PM

The Night Falls

The heart hurts when it does
23 November 2018, 18:00 PM

The “Things in Heaven and Earth”:

“The girl who, somehow strangely resembles Ranu, raised her eyes -a slight smirk hanging in the corner of her lips” – thus ended Devi (1985), closely followed by the second of the Misir Ali sequence, Nishithini in 1986.
23 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Mohammed Hanif and the voices in his head

The Guardian's review of Mohammed Hanif's Red Birds points out how Momo, one of its characters, “complicates our picture of helpless children in refugee camps.”
22 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Out of Grace

I don't have it in me I'm a fire that can't ignite I'm a torch that doesn't ignite the light
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Two poems by Shaira Afrida Oyshee

I grew up with pickle jars
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Land of the Thunder Dragon

At the end of the waterfall of dying lights from the celestial fireball,
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

When Olga Grjasnowa Comes to Dhaka

I met Olga Grjasnowa early this November when she came to a program at ULAB jointly hosted by the University and the Goethe Institute Bangladesh. She had a couple of sessions at the Dhaka Literary Festival too.
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

A Teacher, A Torchbearer

Each time on the eve of a new semester, it is not absolutely uncommon for any university student to feel overwhelmed for many reasons. Faces of the teachers from the bygone
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Tagore and China: A Cambridge Perspective

Unnoticed I am going away/ Just as nobody saw me come./I clasp my hands and bow my head/As clouds puff up in the west…
16 November 2018, 18:00 PM

THE OVER TAKERS: STORIES TO MULL OVER

I was scratching my head as I completed reading the first story in Wasi Ahmed's anthology of short stories entitled The Over Takers. I was scratching my head when I had finished the eleventh tale, also the last in the engrossing volume.
9 November 2018, 18:00 PM

From Mir Mosharraf Hossain's Bishad Shindhu (Ocean of Sorrow)

Why is there no one around? Why is no human being in view? But there are still those in the rooms set aside for them. No changes were visible thus in the quarter where Lord Husayn's kinsmen and women had been kept.
9 November 2018, 18:00 PM

The Other Side of the River

Under the perky moon, Sitting by my beloved, Surrounded with the guitar
9 November 2018, 18:00 PM

A Girl

“A girl,” the nurse had said and the mother had frowned. “A girl,” she turned those words over in her head, mumbled them slowly. “A girl,” she said to the nurse, “I hope the world would be fair to her.” The nurse looked motionless as if she heard those words coming out of every mother's mouth.
9 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Henpecked

The harmonium is massive in size. Antique and made of German reeds. Though time's whiplash left dark marks on it, its exquisite face still attracts its viewers.
9 November 2018, 18:00 PM

Who Made Frankenstein's Monster? Spoiler Alert: It's You

“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? Tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”
8 November 2018, 18:00 PM
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