The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

The celebration is incomplete without spending time with loved ones, good food and a pile of books and magazines waiting to be read. 

Publishers are fearing that the number of readers as well as buyers will gradually decrease. 

. In its fourth session of Literary Matters, the discussion focused on the diversity of writing. The guest speakers were Shagufta Sharmeen Tania, the acclaimed British-Bangladeshi writer and Rahad Abir, another up and coming writer currently residing in the US.

On August 21, Fahmida Azim, a Bangladeshi born, Seattle-based artist and journalist, was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary. The winning team—with Fahmida Azim as artist, Josh Adams on art direction, and Anthony Del Cole as the writer—won the award for “How I escaped a Chinese internment camp”, a visual story on a woman who survived the abduction and internment of Muslims in Chinese camps. The comics reveal insider accounts of China’s anti-Muslim measures, particularly their treatment of the Uyghur community in China.

Daily Star Books editor Sarah Anjum Bari speaks with Fahmida Azim about her work with The Insider and about the responsibilities of visual storytelling.

In The Footsteps Of Rama attempts to retrace the fabled journey of Rama, travelling from Ayodhya to the Dandakaranya forest and Panchavati (near Nashik) and on to Kishkindhya (close to Hampi), Rameshwaram and Sri Lanka. 

For these morbid thoughts, go to the mountains and cry. For these morbid thoughts, kill all your darlings. For these morbid thoughts, shower as soon as you can. For these morbid thoughts, know that it won’t pass.

At the first roar of the clouds, Selim opened his eyes, bloodshot, drowsy and warm like a smoking candle. He stared deep into the abyss swirling before him. In his ears, the moans of the distant sky rang damply, as if the sound came from beneath a heavy blanket.

Dhaka, 1857          

Jules Verne opened my eyes to the wonderful world of science-fiction, a world where the pinnacle of human imagination meets the beauty of the known. 

Besides the brilliantly unconventional addition of an Intelligence Agent as the main audience, the story’s language, unflinchingly charged with a humorous tone, is enough to keep a reader’s eyes glued to the screen.

The program was divided in two sections; the first part was dedicated to launching the book titled, Praner Prodip Jwaliye (Bangla Academy, 2022). It is a collection of poetry and rhymes written for the Prime Minister’s 75th birth anniversary and were composed by celebrated personalities.

Based on an 18th century legend from Bangladesh’s Noakhali region, Beloved Ronglomala tells the story of one Queen Phuleswari, a child bride, and of Rongomala, a woman of legend.

Shabnam Nadiya was selected for The Ice Machine, her translation from the Bangla of Bangladeshi short story writer and novelist Wasi Ahmed’s Borofkol. 

On the occasion of the sixth death anniversary of Syed Shamsul Haq, Sabiha Huq writes on the versatile writer.

She wrote with vitality, a realness that seemed somewhat dangerous on paper. 

The culture and traditions of the country have been colonised. Thoughts which originate in Kolkata are being accepted in Dhaka’s society without due consideration. 

To understand the socio-political context and the country’s present state of affairs—one which gave birth to such daring dissenters—it is important to read books and stories which unveil the experience of individuals chained by Iran’s despots. 

‘Nil Chhaya' connects the Indigo Revolt to the oppressions faced by present day garment factory workers in Bangladesh.

Grieve no more– As for Notan The poet has amassed much grief. Let me plant a tree of fog