SH: In 2011 you made a mega-documentary on 1971. What research on governmental policy documents went into the use of firearms by the Muktijoddhas as shown in your film, or as generally shown in films on the Liberation War?

I was led to delusion,

A sudden stillness!

It was on August 25, 2018, an evening just after the Kurbani Eid holidays, when Mr. Kamran, 66, a returnee from Dubai, went to Banani graveyard, Dhaka to visit his mother’s and father’s graves. After saying prayers he asked the caretaker of the graveyard “Do you have any empty grave?”

Tanvir Mokammel hails from Khulna, which is also the workplace of Prof. Sabiha Huq. This past February, when he was in Khulna for the launching of his partition novel Kirtinasha, the English Department of Khulna University became the privileged venue for a

One late afternoon, dragging his injured leg Kamal finally stood in front of a particular door of a shanti. For some strange reason, he could not enter the house as he used to even five months ago. He called out in a trembling voice, “Nuru! Where are you, my son? I’m home.”

I have been recovering from a very long and arduous block in my reading life, a block that could not be broken by the fattest or

The crimson hue is still in the morning sky.

Writing is a struggle for everyone. If it seems easy, a writer is not doing it right. Because writing is mired in myths and misunderstanding, most writers – aspiring writers, in particular – consider the essential difficulty in writing as a pathology. They feel

Slumped with our luggage we got off the train looking apprehensively at the quaint sight before us. Saplings and balding grasslands carpeted serenely with occasional trees of variety here and there. The scenery struck me with great unfamiliarity in contrast to the city

Instituted by Surina and Manhad Narula in 2010, the US $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is one of the most prestigious international literary awards specifically focused on South Asian writing. It is a unique and coveted prize and is open to authors of any

Though I called out to the shopkeeper a couple of times, he didn’t heed me. He was too busy rearranging the products on the rack. As I was waiting for him to respond, a middle-aged beggar woman turned up on my left and begged for money from me. At first, I

After I finished Things that can and cannot be said, I stood in awe of how much power I held in my hands. In this slim volume were the musings, passing insights, and finally, the long-awaited encounter—albeit censored—of some of the strongest voices against modern-day empire.

I am sure it was sometime in 1965 that a classmate at St. Gregory’s, Muhammad Ali Rumee, piqued my curiosity by describing a new movement in letters launched by some friends of his elder brother.

In a soggy London street he stood, shaking his dreadlocks like wind-struck branches of a willow and moving his weathered bow on the shiny strings of his broken violin.

This is a story without a beginning or an end. The story does not even relate to events that one can see. And yet, in some sense, there is a beginning and there is an end.

It’s late June and it’s hot. It’s nine in the morning and it’s hot. It’s so hot in Dhaka that after a while feelings turn somewhat numbed, vision blurred. And taking advantage of the overcrowded vehicle, when a guy pinches Shila Chakma’s buttock after a futile attempt to grope her breast, she wants to scream: Stop it, you pervert.

We could have never imagined that we would get Topu back. And yet he has returned and is amidst us. It is mind-boggling – the person whom we had seen for the last time at the High Court intersection,

There the tree tom-tomed its existential glory on the bank of the small river at a distance from the village.

Had I but an eternal life (“Ananta Jibon Jodi Pai Ami”)