Interview / Kishwar Chowdhury on Bangali culture and culinary storytelling
11 June 2026, 00:00 AM
When the MasterChef favourite Kishwar Chowdhury and writer Samai Haider caught up to talk about Chowdhury’s debut cookbook Smoke, Rice, Water (Hardie Grant Books, 2026), the conversation quickly morphed into something much larger than publishing deadlines and recipe testing.
News Report / Marjane Satrapi, voice of exile and resistance, dies at 56
4 June 2026, 17:58 PM
Satrapi offered a deeply personal account of life under Iran’s Islamic regime while creating a story that resonated with readers worldwide

Recognising excellence in translation

Saleha Chowdhury has been nominated in the Ajibon Shommanona (Lifetime Award 2022) category. Translators Venkateswar Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahrin were jointly nominated in the Borshoshera Onudito Boi 2022 (Best Translated Book of the Year 2022) category.
25 January 2023, 10:08 AM

Marriage of art and industry: A book illustrates the Hamiduzzaman Sculpture Park

70 percent of these beautiful sculptures are built from the leftover scraps of the Summit Gazipur (464 MW) Power Plant.
24 January 2023, 12:50 PM

Defining Haiku poetry with poet Quamrul Hassan

Haiku is a poem in three lines that captures the image of a single moment in the reader’s mind.
23 January 2023, 12:30 PM

Amitav Ghosh visits ancestral home in Gopalganj

Ulpur village served as the seat of the Zamindari and Jagir of the Basu Roy Chowdhury family.
22 January 2023, 12:23 PM

Revisiting German and Bengali folklore in ‘Myth Bridge’

Here, Rapunzel, Hercules, Bon Bibi, and King Solomon might be having a gala time over tea, or fighting their own battles.
21 January 2023, 12:06 PM

On a Thursday on Kazi Nazrul Avenue

On a Thursday, I went back home, and I took a walk./ On the sidewalk, I saw a splash of maroon on a grey block.
20 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Are you okay/do you want to talk about it

You’re sitting on the couch/ And you’re tapping your feet at 135 miles per hour/ You’re waiting for something to happen
20 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Ghosts in Bangla literature and culture

“Bhoot”, the Bangla word for ghost, derives from the Sanskrit word Bhūta, referring to living beings and the past. Later, it also came to mean ‘disembodied spirit.’ Ghost stories carry a special tradition in Bangla literature and the root lies in folklore and rural culture.
20 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Fail better: A new year’s resolution

But I understand. I am part of a historic pattern. So not everything is personal. I can't help but fall into some of the traps and become prey to some of the vultures.
20 January 2023, 13:26 PM

First look at Rumaan Alam’s ‘Leave The World Behind’ adaptation

Netflix’s adaptation of the novel features Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha'la Herrold, and Kevin Bacon in lead roles, with the film being directed by Sam Esmail, creator and director of popular TV show, Mr. Robot.
20 January 2023, 04:00 AM

To be human for the corporation: Olga Ravn’s ‘The Employees’

These characters, human and machine alike, are invited to provide witness statements about their working environment to a commission, which form the entirety of the novel—a design that helps Ravn bring about an atmosphere of tension.
19 January 2023, 12:30 PM

Livraria Lello: the bookstore that inspired Flourish and Blotts

Visiting the Livaria Lello transports any Harry Potter fan to Flourish and Blotts.
19 January 2023, 00:00 AM

‘Eken Babu’ writer Sujan Dasgupta found dead under mysterious circumstances

He was reportedly found lying on the floor of his bedroom, according to the police. 
18 January 2023, 12:32 PM

William Dalrymple plays a role in world’s largest Commonwealth heritage conservation programme

The 216-year-old building of the former British Residency of Hyderabad (also known as Koti Residency or Hyderabad Residency) has been fully restored after a remodelling work of nearly 20 years.
16 January 2023, 11:42 AM

Hanif Kureishi's Twitter diary and why he couldn't make it to Bangladesh

"I realised I had to start again as a person and a writer. I had to become a comic writer, a serious writer, a writer who could integrate the madness and most interesting elements on the same page."
16 January 2023, 06:09 AM

Italian man steals unpublished books by award-winning authors

The more than 1,000 stolen manuscripts included a work by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
15 January 2023, 07:20 AM

‘Border Crossings’ hopes to reconcile diasporic identities

Syed Afzal Hasan Uddin says of first generation immigrants that they—who are already grappling with the duality of their multifaceted identities—were not seen as being Bengali enough by their parents.
14 January 2023, 12:18 PM

The art of moderating literary conversations

Rifat Munim highlighted how a moderator can be a catalyst to an engaging dialogue between the panellists and the audience,
13 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Foreign literature is a very precious tool for peace

Daily Star Books’ panel on January 8, Day 4 of the Dhaka Lit Fest sought to take the audience to a more existential aspect of what the festival attempts to do. Who chooses which stories deserve to become books? Who chooses whether news of those books will even reach readers? Does book criticism truly help the flow and business of literature within and across national borders?
13 January 2023, 18:00 PM

Goddesses of Bengal: The living myth of Devi Manasa, Bon Bibi and more

There is absolutely no necessary relationship between the worship of goddesses and the treatment of women.
13 January 2023, 18:00 PM
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