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.
11 hour(s) ago Books & Literature
FLASH FICTION / The rickshaw artist
24 January 2026, 01:52 AM Books & Literature
FLASH FICTION / Pirouette of a phoenix
24 January 2026, 01:48 AM 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

The queerness in Virginia Woolf’s writing

At a time when any hint of sexual fluidity would have been a gross transgression, she chose to ignore the unspoken sociopolitical boundaries.
26 January 2024, 12:04 PM

A fixed strand of identity: in conversation with Amal Awad

As a Palestinian-Australian, you’ve stressed the importance of telling stories about everyday Palestinians. Why is it important to tell such stories?
24 January 2024, 18:00 PM

The first semester is your shitty first draft

Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.
24 January 2024, 18:00 PM

What's trending among writers in 2024?

Readers follow trending genres and the latest writing practices, which change within seconds. Keeping up with these trends is difficult for writers
23 January 2024, 15:00 PM

Friday flavours and feels

There were always some guests who would drop by on Friday mornings and in those days, there were no pre-visit calls to check if it would be alright to drop by.
19 January 2024, 04:55 AM

Sad girl lit and trivialising women’s writing

When I read the title of Charlotte Stroud’s article “The curse of the cool girl novelist” and the accompanying description of said type of novelist, I had a solid image of what she was referring to. Stroud describes “cool girl novelists” as “depressed and alienated”, “incurably downcast”, and “terminally sad”. It had similarities with “sad girl” literature, a supposedly new genre captivating readers and publishers alike.
17 January 2024, 18:00 PM

Anne Brontë: The daring sister in the shadows

Anne was a realistic novelist—and one who was very much ahead of her time. She was a fiery feminist, and dismissive of creating any Gothic atmosphere
17 January 2024, 14:11 PM

The controversial legacy of Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’

Readers often look for relatability in the stories and characters they are reading but Nabokov doesn’t give his readers that comfort or spoon feed them. Rather, he challenges them to eschew feeling compelled by Humbert’s justification of his innocence
16 January 2024, 15:00 PM

‘Capitalist Realism’: Reading Mark Fisher in a contemporary world

Why does reality seem so fundamentally unchanging? Fisher argues that the slogan “No Alternative!” is useful for the beneficiaries who, at the end of the day, want to make it seem that nothing else is possible
14 January 2024, 12:00 PM

A writer’s odyssey

Review of ‘Save The Cat! Writes a Novel’ (Ten Speed Press, 2018) by Jessica Brody
11 January 2024, 12:56 PM

Where are Bangla literature’s female detectives?

During the mid 20th century, when female wordsmiths somewhat flourished with their newly published works, they were still suppressed under the dominance of male authors.
10 January 2024, 18:00 PM

18th century British women writers and their Indian others

The postcolonial and feminist lenses Chatterjee deploys in his discussion of the works of the selected women writers seem to suit his analysis of the works of these "enlightenment" period British women writers, for their biases, fixations, and anxieties often come into view then.
10 January 2024, 18:00 PM

Navigating culture, history, and nostalgia in ‘My Life in Tea’

Review of Anwarul Azim’s book ‘My Life in Tea’ (The University Press Limited, 2023)
8 January 2024, 13:30 PM

A morning with Tahmima Anam at Bookworm Bangladesh

Anam chose to centre her reflections and readings on the theme of protests.
7 January 2024, 13:32 PM

10 political biographies to read during the general elections

While history has never been a one-man show, viewing it through the eyes of influential leaders can lend us a bigger picture.
5 January 2024, 14:03 PM

2023 in Review

Some of these works have inspected the complex lives of modern Bangalis while some have traced the contours of our past often not examined. Here’s your chance to read some of the releases of this year by Bangladeshi authors, if you haven’t read them yet. 
2 January 2024, 13:55 PM

Percy Jackson finally gets the adaptation he deserves

The 2010 and 2013 Percy Jackson films, despite Logan Lerman's charismatic lead performance, fell short of expectations, drawing criticism for creative decisions like omitting significant book sequences and ageing Percy prematurely to 16.
1 January 2024, 15:55 PM

The changes in our reading habits this year

The changes in our reading habits this year
31 December 2023, 15:25 PM

In conversation with Anjali Singh and Arif Anwar

"I think of myself as someone who just really enjoys people, bringing people out, and hearing about what they’re working on": Anjali Singh
30 December 2023, 13:55 PM

The Continuing Relevance of Munnu

A review of 'Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir' (Fourth Estate, 2015), a stark portrayal of Kashmir, not through the eyes of a foreign individual looking in from the outside, but a Kashmiri living through the Indian occupation
29 December 2023, 14:00 PM