the moon watches over you, when whales beach themselves, the tides wash them back home; the moon looks down

Sameer’s mother looked at her husband before quickly stepping in and attempting to defuse the situation. “You know it’s just a heritage thing. We’re not really Biharis".

After our spiritual journey to the Old City and West Bank, the realities of life caught up to us.

News from Gaza rips the heart open/ Idlib is burning too

Eurydice, his beloved,  lost to the shades, In the underworld's depths,  where darkness pervades.

Death dwells between is and was, Riding the final particle of a fading breath.

It is odd that nowadays One seldom hears the words

Tell me what to say when I need to speak, If I have to say something, So what can I say: look at that

The door didn’t fully click shut. That was an ordinary affair in the house because the door locked to prevent escape. But, by chance or sheer good luck, it didn’t fully lock this time. The click was off. Someone hadn’t done their job correctly. Bloody hell, no one does their jobs correctly in this godforsaken country.

It’s a truism to say that modern life is complicated, but even a couple of decades ago, it would have been hard to predict the things we are dealing with today.

Let us raise our voices, let us be heard, / Justice for the dead, let their voices be stirred

I remember the wallowing hole inside of my chest, / hollow and bleeding

Once, I believed there was a crown on my head. The heart was brimming with life and light Brimming with boundless force to surpass any spread. Among the crowd, I was always one

You land in London with £210 in your pocket. It is the year 2009. You are able to pay the first month’s rent for the room, but not the deposit. You have to share it with an acquaintance from Dhaka. He arrived a week prior.

But I guess Ivan did not choose wisely. It was a series of unfortunate events with him and now, he was stuck with Rebecca–and there was still six hours 46 minutes left in this office cubicle.

The pavements are hotter in winter, the rain never wets the asphalt and I never tell you to do anything else other than “be”. 

And along with our bodies, the rage keeps on, / we chafe and bleed and clot and steer; / we go mad and nude

And in spite of knowing this/ In spite of the absurdity of it all/ You let yourself fall

Rarely does a book arrive, a debut no less, that feels as inventive and accomplished as Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi’s The Centre. Her novel is built on the crossroads of interpretation and ownership, of the power of language and of those privileged enough to reclaim it.

Bibhuti Babu’s pen tenderly reveals the nudity of apparently disturbing feelings and emotions that we are so ashamed and afraid to accept and express.