Sarah Anjum Bari

The most moving part about these poetry sessions is the conversations.

Literature is our main area of interest.But we also want to highlight areas of intersection between literature and science, politics, pop culture, human rights, and new media.

Qadir’s book includes insight on the origins and evolution of journalism in Bangladesh, firsthand experiences of journalists who have struggled and resigned from large media houses, research and case studies, and proposed solutions.  

If you are reaching out to an agent, go and find out exactly what sort of work that agent publishes. Also, think in terms of what would differentiate your work with the work of 39 other authors.

Shurjo’s Clan uses magic realism to conjure Shurjomukhi’s freedom fighter uncles, who were martyred in Sylhet’s tea gardens during the 1971 Liberation War, and her grandmother, who took her own life shortly after the 1947 Partition. 

The novel opens with a photographer, the eponymous Maali Almeida, who has woken up dead in a celestial visa office, while his body sinks in the Beira Lake in Colombo. Maali has seven moons to find the man and woman he loves and lead them to  "a hidden cache of photos that will rock Sri Lanka".

The Penguin Classics edition of Sultana’s Dream and Padmarag comes in a paperback, ebook, and as an audiobook narrated by Priya Ayyar, a television and film actor and award-winning audiobook narrator with a BFA and MFA from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

I discover that teaching is more about reading people.

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

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

The evening of September 8 at The Daily Star Centre saw an outpouring of verses to a live and very interactive audience. Daily Star Books and SHOUT jointly launched our series of Slam Poetry Nights—an evening, every month, of verses recited in the spirit of creative freedom.

Free to enter and open to any citizen, aged 18 and over, of a Commonwealth country, the prize accepts short story entries written in English and translated to English, as well as stories written in Bangla, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil and Turkish languages. 

The comics portray the experiences of the Uyghur community under the anti-Muslim police state imposed in China. The story includes testimonies given to the United Nations Human Rights Council and condensed by Anthony Del Col and art direction by Josh Adams.

The book includes excerpts from Syed Waliullah's diary, snapshots of his editorial for Contemporary magazine, handwritten edits on his pieces for Shaogat magazine, and a comprehensive bibliography of the author's work and achievements.

Hoichoi’s Kaiser, released on July 8, 2022, is part tribute to the genre of detective novels and part beckoning call for viewers to return to the excitement of reading books. Everything from the premise—based heavily on Rakib Hasan’s series of detective novels called Teen Goyenda—to the set design, character development and plot twists, rely on books as both objects and intellectual stimuli.

We call Dhaka a noisy city, but hardly ever do I feel like the noise stops at our doorsteps.

It is a story of discomfort. Of calm, ruthless violence. A drag-your-hands-down-to-uncover-your-eyes gaze at the oblivion we practice not only during Eid holidays, but on any regular day in Bangladesh. 

From the trailer it looks like Zoya Akhtar's Archies has a wider cast of main characters than Riverdale, but what we want to see is the original comics' innocence revisited.

If you’re part of social media’s book-reading community in Bangladesh, you’ll remember the initial slump in and then an outburst of posts on how much people were reading books.

In “Mother’s Milk”, a short story by Tahmima Anam which appears in Our Many Longings: Contemporary Short Fiction from Bangladesh (Dhauli Books, 2021), an unnamed narrator gives us brief snatches of her life as she attempts to endure…something. One can’t really call it an incident; it is, seemingly, more a state of being that requires her to keep joy at bay. Consciously, deliberately.