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.
25 January 2026, 12:24 PM
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
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Lessons in Chemistry : A novel that reads you
22 January 2026, 15:54 PM
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
EVENT REPORT / Md Ashanur Rahman receives the International Creative Arts Award 2025
19 January 2026, 17:38 PM
Books & Literature
NEWS REPORT / NSU DEML launches inaugural certificate course in creative writing
17 January 2026, 16:00 PM
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
REFLECTIONS / Moon, memory, manifesto: A personal, lyrical essay on Atrai
21 November 2025, 18:28 PM
Books & Literature
REFLECTIONS / The risk of becoming: Notes on translation and transformation
7 November 2025, 18:33 PM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 5 books on women’s everyday terror to read this Halloween: The horror that persists
31 October 2025, 13:45 PM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 8 books to read if you’re fascinated by the louvre heist
30 October 2025, 13:30 PM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Unveiling ‘The July Resolve': Stories of resilience & resistance
14 January 2026, 16:01 PM
Books & Literature
EVENT REPORT / Singing a 900-year-old song: Exploring Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam with Zeba Rasheed Chowdhury
3 January 2026, 10:26 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
EVENT REPORT / Zia Haider Rahman on his award-winning novel at NSU’s Colloquium series
7 November 2025, 11:48 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
EVENT REPORT / Stepping into the uncanny world of Franz Kafka
26 October 2025, 11:55 AM
Books & Literature
THE SHELF / 6 books that I read at the end of last year… I hated 5 of them
You know that feeling when you crack open a new book and you’re convinced that this is the knight in all its paperback shining armour that will save you from your reading slump? Yeah.
7 January 2026, 18:00 PM
Books & Literature
TRIBUTE / Remembering Razia Khan Amin: The pen that forged a generation’s courage
28 December 2025, 12:19 PM
THE SHELF / 5 books to rescue you from brainrot
17 October 2025, 14:45 PM
6 books that bring Bangladesh to life for diaspora teens
10 October 2025, 19:11 PM
BOOK REVIEW: GRAPHIC NOVEL / The tragedy of ‘Demon Slayer’
10 October 2025, 14:30 PM
THE SHELF / 7 lyrical fantasy books: Where prose becomes poetry
7 October 2025, 11:14 AM
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / In which Arundhati gives it those ones
1 October 2025, 18:00 PM
FICTION / The truth factory
12 September 2025, 18:54 PM
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / The Indosphere and its discontents
10 September 2025, 18:00 PM
Essay / Sonnet of the riverbank: Remembering Al Mahmud, the poet
29 August 2025, 19:49 PM
The ethics of ghostwriting in fiction
Ghostwriting is not new, and Millie Bobby Brown is not the first celebrity to hire a ghostwriter. But, soon after she published her book, she came under fire for using one.
28 December 2023, 12:32 PM
Learning to let go
As the novel progresses, you peel back layers of history between Claire and her grandparents and realise that the Korea issue isn’t as straightforward as our protagonist imagined.
28 December 2023, 12:23 PM
5 books you should read before 2023 ends
As 2023 draws to a close, we have compiled a list of books we think you should read that capture the essence of the year and prepare you for another vibrant year of reading.
27 December 2023, 13:45 PM
A pleasant pool of magic I would happily drown in
What I loved most as a reader about her is that her strength was not displayed in the conventional ways that most fantasy books tend to use to depict a powerful woman.
25 December 2023, 15:55 PM
UPL organises Book Talk highlighting the essence of Bengali poets writing in English
In this discussion, a throughline was drawn from the early 20th century to the early 21st.
24 December 2023, 14:00 PM
Rokeya’s relevance to Palestinian feminism
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary (online), the first known use of the term ‘feminism’–
22 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Navigating the labyrinth of Bangladesh’s secular identity
The debate about the constitutional position of secularism in Bangladesh with Islam as the state religion raises one burning question, “Is the country undergoing an identity crisis?”
20 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Books that reinspire the creative spark
And on this day, when you are almost certain you will complete what you set out to do (hit your word count), you pick up that pen and flip open your notebook, and it hits you.
20 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Discovering something not-so new with ‘The Turtle of Oman’
The melancholic, tuned nostalgia of finishing a journey was being caressed by the soft yet upbeat rhythm of the journey coming forth.
17 December 2023, 15:55 PM
Human virtue questioned in the not-so-small things
At a time when everyone is grappling with financial instability while combating the icy spree, Bill is grateful enough to have survived another year with his wife Eileen and five daughters.
15 December 2023, 14:00 PM
On wars and words
These words are not just some veils adorning the valour and victory of our freedom fighters; they're not just tributes but testaments to the rare occasion of the oppressed overpowering the oppressor.
13 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Discussion on Munier Chowdhury held at Jahangirnagar University
In his discussion on Munier Chowdhury and his writings, Professor Mashrur Shahid Hossain hailed Munier Chowdhury as the “pioneer writer” of comparative literature in Bangladesh.
13 December 2023, 15:00 PM
The futuristic post-punk world of Izumi Suzuki
More than anything, Suzuki shows that the key to being an alien is not to be outlandish but to be sickeningly more human.
13 December 2023, 13:55 PM
Explosive speculative fiction in the latest issue of ‘Small World City’
What struck me the most about these stories is the firm, unflinching, and confident authorial voice sneaking up on and dictating the reader’s thoughts, orienting them to feel sympathy for the characters no matter how unlikeable they are.
11 December 2023, 13:55 PM
Is the whimsy in Zoya Akhtar’s ‘The Archies’ whimsical enough?
A rather random yet enjoyable song highlights how everything is political, from the lunch we eat to the way we dress for school.
10 December 2023, 15:55 PM
The wisdom of innocence
These stories, whether in books or movies, not only provide pearls of wisdom for young minds, but even subvert the preconceived notion that wisdom is cultivated with age
8 December 2023, 13:00 PM
Ink and memories: Revisiting the 'Anandamela' days
As a juvenile bibliophile, I used to see the copies as a delicate object greeting with utter care and affection.
7 December 2023, 13:55 PM
Celebrating Rokeya
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880–1932) was exceptional in many different ways. Born on December 9, 1880, in a sleepy village in Rangpur, undivided Bengal, she died on the same day, 52 years later,
6 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Sultana’s Dream and the issue with feminist utopias
“They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing.”
6 December 2023, 18:00 PM
Book remedies for children from the shelves of CholPori
Every recommendation on this list is specifically aimed at allaying the common psychological ailments of childhood.
6 December 2023, 14:10 PM