Bulldozed brick by brick, my childhood was torn apart by tears streaming down the stone facade as my house collapsed.

It was November 18, 2017, when the Delhi-based Scottish historian William Dalrymple came to participate in the ‘Dhaka Lit Fest.’ Ridwan Akram spoke to the author of the books, White Mughals and The Last Mughal. This interview throws light on Mr. Dalrymple’s thoughts, writing, personal life, and Indian history.

Joan has always felt not American enough for America and not Chinese enough for China. As a transnational immigrant, even her work ethic is assessed in a dehumanising way.

The workshops were the sessions I’d look forward to. Someone actually reading your work, studying it, telling you what you do well, telling you what you can improve on, all phrased constructively (“I like this!” was a banned phrase). If you’re pursuing writing, workshopping—on some level or another—is what you’ll need.

The 11 short stories encompass a number of ideas, mainly the binary oppositions of the human psyche, all covering the inner conflicts of human life. 

The 5th session of "Literary Matters" focuses on literary translation in Bangladesh.

Nancy Drew always knows how to save herself and others from seemingly hopeless situations. For instance, she uses specific techniques to free herself from ropes, sends SOS signals with a tube of lipstick, and uses spike heels to break out windows. Her blue convertible car is a symbol of radical feminine freedom. 

A story recounting a mysterious phenomenon.

Rahman’s central character Mumin, a teacher of Islamic studies in a district high school is summoned by the headmistress to help liberate her young daughter from an apparent demonic possession.

My mother was a house maid in a rich, village household. The master of the house was my father.  When I was recovering from measles, she managed a bowl of smoky, warm rice and six little crunchy puti fish for me.

The ring in the picture is the one that John Keats gave to his beloved Fanny Brawne as engagement ring in the Autumn of 1891. The stone is a garnet – set in gold. An inexpensive piece of jewellery, it reflects the financial condition of a poor poet struggling to make ends meet.

Like A Song of Ice and Fire, The Priory of the Orange Tree is told from the perspective of many different characters in various parts of the world, with different loyalties, religions, ranks, and abilities.

I once thought it was impossible to present the magnitude of the novel on stage.

By 1954 Jibanananda Das, after years of neglect, was beginning to gain increasing attention as a poet all over Bengal—East or West—and had a steady teaching job after a long, long time. Indeed, in 1953 he had been awarded the Rabindra-Smriti Puroshkar for his book of verse, Banalata Sen. In May, 1954 his Jibanananda Dasher Shreshto Kobita came out from a reasonably good publishing house, collecting his best poems.

The poems varied from mental health issues to individual freedom of expression and every musing in between.

Despite the regret I felt for not studying them with honest academic interest, the goal of having to go through those academic books did provide me a sense of purpose. However, now that exams were over, I realised that I had to replace those mundane books with more fascinating ones.

After a ten-year long hiatus, Monica Ali has returned with Love-Marriage that has has caused quite a stir.

“What Men Live By” opens like a children’s story—the way Matilda or most Roald Dahl books would start out—with simple, everyday events and straightforward descriptions. Eventually, though, one line caught my attention and I couldn’t help but smile:

A long time ago, when I was a young writer who had just published his first collection of short stories and had just been married to a young and lovely woman, I wrote a love story in the first person, which created two unanticipated problems.

The stories occur in places deeply etched into many of our memories—from rooftops to buses to benches in the park to the digital world of emails and texts.