THE SHELF / 6 books that I read at the end of last year… I hated 5 of them

The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.

Here is a short list of her chants in fiction, creating a narrative of Bangali postcolonial resistance

My heart is an oligarch: A staunch, pot-bellied, knuckle-cracking middle-aged man lounging carelessly, lazily  in his sitting room with his limbs spread out on a settee

Pale, aristocratic, seductive forces lurking in the dark—when we think of vampires, we often perceive them through a western lens

The city of Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, was once the breeding hotspot of the 20th century’s greatest writers, scientists, scholars, and activists.

Folk Melody of Bangladesh: An Anthology of Bangladesh Folk Music in Standard Notation is a music anthology that compiles 204 carefully chosen folk songs of Bangladesh that date from the 16th century.

These nuanced characterisations of those who have suffered terribly and are desperately trying to rebuild themselves are what have kept me hooked to the series.

With the departure of an autocrat and the period of semi-expected-still-frightening chaos after, comes the period when we have to sit down to think of what comes ahead, know what we must not do, and get some direction on how we are supposed to go on. In light of this, the following articles and/or chapters have been curated for perspectives that might be needed in this unprecedented situation we’ve found ourselves in.

In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime. 

Review of ‘Nexus’ (Random House, 2024)

Literary cannibalism refers to the retellings of Western classics written by colonised or formerly colonised countries. These authors aim to decolonise the mindset of the readers of the popular literary classics. Decolonisation is a violent process, and by comparing this genre with cannibalism it demonstrates the brutality of it.

I was a Twilight girl.

It's almost as if Matthew Perry was destined to write this book.

Being an ardent admirer of K-pop culture, I wonder why I was hitherto unaware of this gem of a book, One Left by Kim Soom, and the excruciatingly painful truth it delineates.

‘Shabnam’ is a dewdrop in Persian. Shabnam (1960) is the name of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s passionate love story that stretches beyond the history of nearly a century ago.

Everett’s breezy, fast-moving retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is about putting in some due respect.

As of writing this article, the official death count in the Palestinian genocide has surpassed 42 thousand lives. In my room, I quietly sit and read excerpts from Han Kang’s The Vegetarian (Portobello Books, 2015) in celebration of her winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Review of ‘Forgotten Foods: Memories and Recipes from Muslim South Asia’ (Picador India, 2023) edited by Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, Tarana Husain Khan, and Claire Chambers

I am compelled to ask what being a Bangali even means today: What shapes our ethnic identity?

The first pulse, in the midst of a whipping maelstrom,