In Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul (Vintage Books, 2019), Khan delineates a personal map of Kabul, taking the reader through the “shadow city” that can be found in its still-standing monuments, libraries, pleasure gardens, theatres, shopping malls, wedding halls and graveyards.

Samai Haider’s Tilmund’s Travel Tales (Guba Books, 2020) is a story about a little boy named Tilmund who has a great wish to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and travel the world.

Henry Kissinger is infamous in Bangladesh for allegedly terming the newly-independent country a “bottomless basket”, but this statement appears to be the least of his crimes against the people of Bangladesh.

Mohammad Nazim Uddin’s fictional offering ultimately hovers somewhere between pulp fiction and feminist commentary, but it fails to satisfy readers on either count.

Won-Pyung Sohn’s Almond (HarperVia, 2021), translated to English by Sandy Josun Lee, is a mesmerizing novel that captures the heart of a reader indelibly. Fifteen-year-old Yunjae cannot feel emotions due to alexithymia and is deemed a monster by others. Feelings such as love and empathy are mere words to him. At the age of six he sees a child gang-beaten to death by other children. More than a decade later, he watches a man stab his grandmother and hammer his mother into a comatose state, without batting an eyelid. At school he is tormented and at home, he becomes aware of an ever-growing void due to the absence of a loving family, but nothing can penetrate his heart. His lonely days pass in nonchalance until one day an unusual request from a stranger ends up connecting him with another ‘monster’ named Gon. 

Over the years, Dahl’s work in children’s literature has amassed quite the legacy in pop culture, with actor-director Danny DeVito’s silver screen adaptation of Matilda only adding to the novel’s popularity. Looking at the anniversary today, I can’t help but wonder if the magical children’s icon from the late ‘80s can continue to exert the same amount of influence over young minds. Fourth-grade Rasha would have gleefully said ‘Yes’ in a heartbeat, but as a young adult, I believe there is some reflecting to be done. 

In this addition to this series, following up on the previous installment’s focus on nonfiction narratives of Birangonas’s lives and experiences, we recall Tarashankar Bandopadhyay’s '1971' (2015) and Shaheen Akhtar’s 'Talaash' (2004), two books that can be considered as significant exceptions to the trend mentioned above, and also as examples of the politics of representation, objectification of women, and the desensitisation of lived experiences of trauma.

Before I knew it, I developed a personal relationship with the book. I was glued from beginning till end. I read slowly. Sometimes I read the same section twice. I could not focus on anything else till I finished. The experience was psychedelic: an expansion of the mind (imagination). In the end, the second omen worked. I was out of depression. Ricardo was right: “a good book (or film) can pull you out of depression”. 

Karina’s experiences are conveyed with compassion, emphasising the real issues of gender inequality in South Asian communities. The fact that parents continue to force their dreams on children instead of letting them pursue their own speaks volumes about the family dynamics existing in our households. Karina is seen to experiment with various ways of coping with anxiety instead of seeking professional help. Her experiences represent the glaring lack of mental health care in our community, even beyond national borders. That being said, the techniques Karina employs could be a helpful resource for readers suffering from similar issues. 

Rachel Clarke reminds us of the intensity of the ongoing tragedy in her autobiographical Breathtaking (Little, Brown, 2021), told from the extraordinary perspective of a palliative care doctor.

Iraq once boasted one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities, encompassing 2,600 years of rich cultural history punctuated with moments of benign tolerance, blatant discrimination, and outright intolerance and persecution.

Shaheen Chishti, a descendant of the revered Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, and a London-based writer and women’s rights advocate, has just released his debut novel. The Grand Daughter Project (Nimble Books, 2021) touches upon a wide range of themes including gender inequality, racial oppression, war-time trauma, and female emancipation.

The book, Knowledge Management, Governance and Sustainable Development: Lessons and Insights from Developing Countries (Routledge, 2020), edited by M Aslam Alam, Fakrul Alam, and Dilara Begum, is indeed a timely endeavour.

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer is an Afro Latina Muslim, a hip-hop head, and the originator of the term "Muslim Cool". Through her book, Muslim Cool: Race, Religion,

Earlier this week, in a break from work-related correspondence, I sent author Tahmima Anam a personal email. I told her I was writing to her “as a reader” this time, because after months of scarfing down books for the sole purpose of writing reviews, The Startup Wife (Penguin India, 2021) made me forget that I was reading it for work.

The first of July has always been a busy day. With remembrances, special anniversaries and the beginning of a new financial year, the day also reminds us of how fast time passes, as half of the year flies by at the blink of an eye. Yesterday, however, the day was extra significant, because Dhaka University turned a century old. The only known institution in Bangladesh turning 100 (to my knowledge), and that too an important one both academically and historically, led me to look for books and other published items from the past which would speak at length about the university.

One of the best ways to learn about the past 100 years of the University of Dhaka, for those proud of its history and truly concerned about its future, is to read the two volumes of Dhaka University:

Today I would like to talk about a book that I have been waiting to read for a very long time. After years of procrastination, luckily, I finally got hold of a copy and decided to write my thoughts about it—what I expect from it, why I would like to read it and of course, experiencing the sheer eagerness of waiting to turn the pages of a new book; a new adventure.

Mrittika Anan Rahman (MAR): What does it say about Bollywood that it became mediators of so many of India and Bangladesh’s neighbouring cultures through its adaptation of stories such as Mughal-E-Azam, Umrao Jaan, or Laila Majnu?

In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this page, this monthly column on short stories is a little treat to ourselves—a short and delicious reminder of what the simple act of storytelling can accomplish.