Beyond stereotypes: Rupert Grey’s ‘Homage to Bangladesh’

Rupert Grey, a descendant of Charles Grey and best known professionally as a leading libel and copyright lawyer stood against this statement. “If Bangladesh is a basket case,” Grey tells The Daily Star, “then it is so in the best possible way.” For him, the term collapses under the sheer vitality of the country. A single square metre of a Bangladeshi street, he argues, holds more energy than entire neighbourhoods in London. Where life in England often unfolds in rigid routines, Bangladesh thrives in spontaneity—where a hanging lighter at a tea stall can become a moment of shared choreography.
40 MIN(s) ago Books & Literature
POETRY / Memories
24 January 2026, 01:36 AM Books & Literature

EDITORIAL / Why read?
22 January 2026, 00:00 AM Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 7 new books to look out for in 2026
22 January 2026, 00:00 AM Books & Literature

INTERVIEW / Reclaiming the unwritten: Kanika Gupta on colonialism, embodiment, and the art of remembering

Gupta shares her insights on reclaiming forgotten histories, reimagining myths, and connecting ancient narratives to contemporary ecological and social concerns.
22 November 2025, 11:51 AM Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / An eco-critical look at Sultan: Reading the manuscript of ‘Sultan Er Krishi Jiggasha’
With the aid of Duniyadari Archive, Pavel Partha’s soon-to-be-published book Sultan Er Krishi Jiggasha is a new addition, which looks at Sultan’s work from an eco-critical perspective.
8 November 2025, 11:43 AM Books & Literature
NEWS REPORT / “Curious love letter”: Wole Soyinka responds after US cancels visa
He responded to the situation with grace, mentioning “I like people who have a sense of humour".
30 October 2025, 10:45 AM Books & Literature

5 short and savoury reads for Eid-ul-Azha

Short books you can start and finish in a day
17 June 2024, 10:23 AM

Rising from the ashes

The literary world was shaken on August 12, 2022, when the news of Salman Rushdie being stabbed on stage in upstate New York started to pour in. Ironically, he was all set to talk about his involvement in a project to create a refuge in the USA for those writers who are not safe in their country.
12 June 2024, 18:00 PM

Celebrating the best of Bengali short fiction

Bengali literature has had a rich history of prose, beginning more or less in the early 19th century under the colonial Raj.
12 June 2024, 18:00 PM

Understanding generational trauma through 'Feeding Ghosts'

A review of Tessa Hulls' graphic memoir, 'Feeding Ghosts' (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2024)
9 June 2024, 13:45 PM

Exploring The Rebel’s call to revolution

Review of ‘Bidrohi Puran’ (Pendulum Books, 2024) by Arif Rahman
8 June 2024, 13:45 PM

Speaking with Arunava Sinha about Sanya Rushdi’s ‘Hospital’: A translator extraordinaire

"...it is our responsibility to contribute to ways in which more translators can work well, be compensated fairly and find the work worthwhile enough to continue doing it"
6 June 2024, 09:59 AM

Of language and free will

'We are truly prisoners of the mind', says Sanya Rushdi, the author-narrator of Hospital (Giramondo Publishing, 2023)
5 June 2024, 18:00 PM

Second person narratives: A universe unexplored

You cannot reach the expansive world of literature quick enough
5 June 2024, 14:50 PM

It has to be print

There is something in the tactility of books that even non-readers find themselves admiring, and readers more so.
29 May 2024, 18:00 PM

On making zines with Aqui Thami

A big believer in social exchanges and developing safe spaces to position art as a medium of healing in community, Thami works on ceremonial interventions, performances, drawings, zine-making, fly posting, and public intervention, brought together by participant involvement
29 May 2024, 18:00 PM

100 feminist zines to shake, inspire, and soothe you

This year, to celebrate Sister Library Dhaka turning four, we acquired a collection of 100 zines curated by the library’s founder, Aqui Thami. The collection will be available for reading at the Goethe-Institut library from June onwards. With the acquisition of this collection, we are finally connected to the mothership Sister Library in Bombay.
29 May 2024, 18:00 PM

Unseen chains of consequences

When a few boys arrive at the couple’s flat to seek out their college-going daughter, Rekha, the parents are thrown into a whirlwind of adventure.
29 May 2024, 13:45 PM

Evil never looked this good

Even without a full-blown sympathetic backstory, a villain’s motivations can be complex.
26 May 2024, 13:39 PM

The whimsical storytelling of video games

Creating a video game, especially one that is storyline-based or an open-world role-playing game, is like creating an entirely new universe
24 May 2024, 14:32 PM

Beyond science and scope: ‘The Three-Body Problem’

The Three-Body Problem is the first book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past (2006) trilogy by Cixin Liu, a renowned Chinese author.
22 May 2024, 18:00 PM

5 atmospheric books to read during a kalboishakhi jhor

As long-awaited summer showers arrive to offer respite from the sweltering heat we have been experiencing, here are a few books to accompany you as you cosy up in bed and watch the rain beat down on your windows.
22 May 2024, 18:00 PM

Why Dune stands the test of time

I recently had the sublime experience of watching the recent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune (Chilton Books, 1965), a 2021 and 2023 two-part movie series directed by the passionate Denis Villeneuve. It is, in my mind, a cinematic triumph, and I am thrilled to witness the surge interest these movies have driven for Herbert’s science fiction book series of the same name.
22 May 2024, 18:00 PM

'Small World City' Issue 04: Another dosage of the beautiful and the haunted

The latest offering from the online literary journal feels, in many respects, like their most polished work yet
17 May 2024, 15:00 PM

The saga of a mother’s sacrifice and resilience

Anisul Hoque’s Kokhono Amar Maa-ke is the story of appalling sacrifices made by a mother and her unwavering determination to secure a bright future for her children.
15 May 2024, 18:00 PM

Poetry for our times and a poet’s new frontier

Inevitably, Kaiser Haq’s The New Frontier and Other Odds and Ends in Verse and Prose is about the poet, his poetic predilections, and situatedness at this time of human existence. In many ways it is typical of the verse we have come to expect from our leading poet in English for a long time now, but in other ways it articulates his present-day concerns in new and striking poetic measures. 
15 May 2024, 18:00 PM