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

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 perks of being a reader in residence

The goal of this project is to bring together readers to explore literary contributions, showcase artistic quality and celebrate women in the creative world as well as to foster interests and understanding of the accomplishments of female writers and artists. 
4 September 2023, 15:56 PM

The new speculative literary magazine on the block

Veering off from stories for a bit, Fahim Anzoom Rumman’s “The Secret” was a breath of fresh air. The piece seemed to be a cross between a poem and the kind of fable your grandparents would tell you as a kid to get you to fall asleep.
2 September 2023, 16:15 PM

Mood mirror

Whenever depression is depicted in pop culture, it is shown in some visible extreme, with blue-grey lighting, dark rooms, ashen faces peering out through rainy windows, bodies curled up in bed.
30 August 2023, 18:00 PM

6 wonderful books to celebrate the Women in Translation month

‘Women in Translation’ is an all-inclusive, international project that aims to terminate the continual discrimination faced by non-English female authors, and gives them due recognition.
30 August 2023, 18:00 PM

“Pettiness, Prejudice, and Pets with Panache”

I first came across Anastasia Ryan’s work through my Instagram wanderings and was instantly intrigued by the sound of her recently released novel. Not least by its title, You Should Smile More.
30 August 2023, 18:00 PM

The minority report in India

In Another India, Pratinav Anil unambiguously faults Nehruvian secularism—the very mantle championed by historians such as Mushirul Hasan for whom “the congress best represented the Muslim interests from the fifties on.”
28 August 2023, 13:55 PM

Living a feminist killjoy life

The way we perceive the word “emotion” through the gendered lens contributes to systematic oppression because it dismisses those who fall under the umbrella of the emotional radar and it is easier to silence their voices as emotional beings because they are often, according to the patriarchal society, deemed as unstable, illogical, or disoriented.
26 August 2023, 04:55 AM

Why grown-ups should reimmerse themselves in children's literature

Children's literature is purposefully crafted for a segment of society without political or economic clout—individuals devoid of wealth, suffrage, or command over the levers of finance and governance.
25 August 2023, 04:55 AM

Why I learned more from reading fiction books than nonfiction

It is deeply saddening that this discouragement to read fiction is coming at a time when we as a population are suffering from a crisis in empathy.
23 August 2023, 15:55 PM

Applications for the next session of Write Beyond Borders are now open

The lineup of mentors includes a range of writers from South Asia, currently based in and publishing from all over the globe.
19 August 2023, 12:12 PM

Discussion on power inequalities

As the guests arrived, the room brightened up and a conversation began that would eventually go on to deeply invest in exploring the nature of power and of defiantly opposing the status quo.
18 August 2023, 08:55 AM

On moving

Reading moves you. The movement is emotional—you feel moved as you read, you feel moved by what you read. To read is to be moved—by the sheer joy and ecstasy on the pages, by the pain and heartache in the letters,
16 August 2023, 18:00 PM

Memory is a treacherous and wonderful thing

Around 14 years ago, I left my life behind in Nigeria. After almost half a decade spent in a land far from home, leaving felt crushing.
16 August 2023, 18:00 PM

Stories that move you

In keeping with the spirit of Partition of 1947, we have compiled a list of stories that deal with movements and migrations,
16 August 2023, 18:00 PM

Sports journalism and Bangladesh

Textbooks in Bangladesh tend to be written by foreign authors. Those that are written by Bangladeshi authors, emphasise on examples in a non-Bangladesh context.
9 August 2023, 18:00 PM

The straight and narrow vision of ‘Crook Manifesto’

Colson Whitehead’s sequel to his novel Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday, 2021) is a continuation of the exact same order.
9 August 2023, 18:00 PM

‘Bare life’ and Partition

“Can one break a country...Will the earth bleed?” asks eight-year-old Lenny in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India (1988)–a tale about Partition. “No one’s going to break India. It’s not made of glass!”
9 August 2023, 18:00 PM

The "original and thrilling": The Booker Prizes announces 2023 longlist

The novels are small revolutions, each seeking to energise and awaken the language. Together, they offer startling portraits of the current.
7 August 2023, 15:55 PM

What I mean when I say “listening to books”

Listening is stretching beyond ourselves and another, and if we were to listen to printed words on paper as non-verbal cues of communication, it too emits lower frequencies that moves us, beyond the I, towards new modes of knowledge.
4 August 2023, 12:55 PM

Tech bias: not a glitch, but a structural problem

With statistics backing her up, Broussard does a stellar job of portraying this bias for the readers with stories from individuals who have faced such discrimination. The book opens with the story of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams who gets wrongfully identified by a police facial recognition technology and gets taken into custody.
3 August 2023, 12:55 PM