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

Post-Partition period in books: Prabhas Chandra, Tajuddin, and Ahmed Kamal offer testimonies

On the 75th anniversary of the 1947 Partition, we look back at the testimonies of the veteran politician, Prabhas Chandra Lahiri; the young political activist, Tajuddin Ahmed; and Professor Ahmed Kamal's book comprising research on and stories of the time.
15 August 2022, 12:58 PM

‘Mujib’ graphic novels: ‘Drawing a young Mujib and ensuring its acceptability was my biggest challenge’

I had to go through any and every film I could find that was set around the 1950s and after to understand how the society was during that time.
15 August 2022, 09:50 AM

How Salman Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ changed my life

Metaphors have never made more sense to me than when these two swapped but intertwined lives personified India and Pakistan, the two newborn countries, whose births were marked by blood, pain and trauma.
14 August 2022, 13:15 PM

How I feel about Virginia Woolf being part-Bengali

Maybe I loved her so because we were daughters of the same soil, to some extent, at least. It made me smile. But I also sneered at myself a little bit, because her soil had also ripped apart mine for over 200 years.
13 August 2022, 10:40 AM

Shamsur Rahman, Al Mahmud, Shaheed Quaderi translated in new Bangla Academy book

The poems of Shamsur Rahman, Al Mahmud, and Shahid Qadri have been translated by Kaiser Haq, M Harunur Rashid, Kabir Chowdhury, Zillur Rahman Siddiqui and Rifat Munim for the edition.
13 August 2022, 05:23 AM

ULAB Lit Salon to host discussion on Partition and its aftermath on August 13

The event will discuss the Bengal Partition of 1905, a second Partition of Bengal—and the Indian subcontinent in 1947—and the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. The Salon will showcase aspects of these partitions, living histories that bind India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
12 August 2022, 13:03 PM

International Youth Day: Why I enjoy reading YA books as an adult

We are drawn to stories about first experiences, and YA literature is rich with it. First experiences draw us in because they are the crucible for change.
12 August 2022, 06:37 AM

Niaz Zaman's 'An Ekushey Anthology': Reminiscing Ekushey, 70 years on

Zaman has classified the pieces in two groups: "the early stories focus on the events that took place on 21 February—the processions, the police action and the deaths—while the later ones show how the attitude to Bangla has changed in these 70 years.
10 August 2022, 18:00 PM

The books that made ‘Kaiser’

Hoichoi’s Kaiser, released on July 8, 2022, is part tribute to the genre of detective novels and part beckoning call for viewers to return to the excitement of reading books. Everything from the premise—based heavily on Rakib Hasan’s series of detective novels called Teen Goyenda—to the set design, character development and plot twists, rely on books as both objects and intellectual stimuli.
10 August 2022, 18:00 PM

To trace back a tapestry of trauma: Partition inherited

Perhaps the book's best aspect is how it allows space for the stories of those who perpetrated violence during Partition.
10 August 2022, 18:00 PM

Gaiman’s Paradox: When adaptations are overanalysed

The approach to critiquing any adaptation is to judge it as a separate piece of work, rather than as a companion piece for the book.
10 August 2022, 13:08 PM

‘Indigenous In the Edge’ outlines lives of 17 ethnic groups in Bangladesh

Members of each community have reviewed the information that attempts to offer insight into the histories, homes, the clans and tribes that make up each community, the food habits and religious and cultural practices, and the languages, written and oral, they employ. 
9 August 2022, 14:56 PM

Netflix’s ‘The Sandman’ re-creates Neil Gaiman’s world in its own image

If you didn’t read The Sandman, watch The Sandman. If you read The Sandman, don’t expect the same magic as in the pages.
7 August 2022, 13:00 PM

Book news: ‘Banglar Rock Metal’ charts history of Bangla band music

The “Bangladeshi rock band encyclopaedia” is authored by music journalists Milu Aman and Haque Faruk, depicting the chronological history of 180 music bands in the country.
7 August 2022, 09:46 AM

Tagore’s Gitabitan and the bookshelf of a Bengali household

It has been 81 years today since Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali polymath, poet, composer and the first Bengali Nobel Laureate, breathed his last. In these 81 years, much has changed in the world, including the modernisation of his compositions. Tagore’s songs—Rabindra Sangeet, as they are known—are still popular amongst Bengali music lovers.
6 August 2022, 09:30 AM

DhakaYeah designs book cover for HarperCollins India

The novel, first published in Bangla as Narach, is set in late 19th century colonial Bengal. 
5 August 2022, 06:56 AM

I write a name.—An ode to imagination

Imagination is the capacity to explore that "something else way down." 
5 August 2022, 04:00 AM

Short Story Review: In “Lucky”, innocent lives encounter destructive politics

For me, the key takeaway from “Lucky” would be the perspective one can gain into living in the shadow of war, which creates around its victims a prison of undying misery.
4 August 2022, 09:08 AM

At the Blums’—A review of 'The Netanyahus' by Joshua Cohen

Cohen’s book confidently deals with the comedy of the Jewish family.
4 August 2022, 07:40 AM

Did Western education really uplift the colonised Bengalis?

Paul argues that colonial education rather sowed discord and contributed to unequal divisions of labour between Hindus and Muslims.
4 August 2022, 07:09 AM