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

Geetanjali Shree's Partition novel 'Tomb of Sand' wins International Booker Prize 2022

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree became the first author from the country to win the International Booker Prize for her Hindi novel set in the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent.
27 May 2022, 10:35 AM

The invisible colours of yearning for home

Through eight short stories, Rumana Chowdhury’s Dusk in the Frog Pond and Other Stories (‎Inanna Publications, Toronto, 2021) brings to
25 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Marketing pills or monetizing pain? One family’s greed destroys thousands

Empire of Pain is a wondrous achievement of investigative journalism.
25 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Ira Mukhoty's ‘Song of Draupadi’: An inside story of the Mahābhārata heroines

Their voices were muffled; everything the women said became ventriloquism. Mukhoty lets us hear those voices.
25 May 2022, 18:00 PM

‘Luminaries of the Word’: Student designs video game on Bangladeshi women writers

"I selected excerpts from eight famous works, books like Begum Rokeya’s 'Motichur' and 'Ekattorer Diary' by Sufia Kamal, and expanded on their implied or intended meaning as best as I could."
25 May 2022, 14:56 PM

What we readers want from Zoya Akhtar’s ‘The Archies’

From the trailer it looks like Zoya Akhtar's Archies has a wider cast of main characters than Riverdale, but what we want to see is the original comics' innocence revisited.
18 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Enter 'Alphabetica': Vowels form a unique minority in Roy Phoenix’s satire

At its core, Alphabetica is a satire on majoritarianism.
18 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Sabiha Huq's 'The Aviary': History depicted by three Mughal princesses and a Kashmiri queen

Sabiha Huq excavates and discusses overlooked texts written by Muslim women and questions the position of women within Islamic cultures in South Asia at large.
18 May 2022, 18:00 PM

For fans of ‘Heartstopper’, an Alice Oseman reading guide

I wanted to share my personal reading order of Alice’s work and a glance into what you can expect from each.
18 May 2022, 12:31 PM

The Myth Bridge: Goethe Institut Bangladesh and HerStory Foundation revisit women of folklore through Dungeons and Dragons

Going live from May 15 is The Myth Bridge, a live-action simulation game that “[brings] to life” and connects nine women characters from Bengali and German folklore. 
17 May 2022, 15:41 PM

UPL launches book, ‘Millennial Generation in Bangladesh’

The book in question, according to the blurb on UPL’s website, asks noteworthy questions like, “How do [Millennials] identify themselves in the social and national contexts and how can the nation's framework work for their life strategy?” 
15 May 2022, 08:57 AM

Zahid Newaz’s ‘Shutrodhor’: A journey into our time

Shutrodhor (Abishkar Publication, 2021) starts with the disappearance of Anwar Ali. The sky-blue shirt that he wore on the day of his disappearance ends up at Rosario Automatic Dry Cleaners,
11 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Reading tips for a full-time working mom

As I wrote in “Motherhood—the story of a transformed reader”, my essay for Daily Star Books on International Mother’s Day on
11 May 2022, 18:00 PM

ULAB English department to launch Literary Salon on Saturday

In an initiative that is first of its kind, the Department of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh is launching the ULAB Literary Salon on Saturday, May 14.
11 May 2022, 18:00 PM

Is there a way out of the ethno-political cauldron in India’s far-east?

After describing why this region is India’s gateway to realising its eastern ambitions, Sudeep soon cuts to the chase, stating that the Naga peace process is central to establishing peace in Nagaland and Manipur.
11 May 2022, 18:00 PM

The 'idol-breaker' of Iran: poet Forough Farrokhzad

She would be the first woman in the history of Persian literature to publish poems that spoke openly of women, sexuality, longings, and equality.
10 May 2022, 11:26 AM

Motherhood—the story of a transformed reader

Motherhood changes everything you knew about yourself and the world you had carefully curated for the past however many years you have been alive.
8 May 2022, 09:54 AM

The Sehri Tales prompt is a Rorschach test for participants

If there is one thing that worries me a little, it is that the strong trend for themes of sexual violence that began to appear during lockdown, continues to be favoured by a significant number of our domestic writers.
2 May 2022, 10:11 AM

Book charities to donate to this Eid

The pandemic has disrupted the businesses of struggling booksellers, many of whom are still reeling from their losses. There are organisations that are helping booksellers, book readers, and both.
28 April 2022, 07:03 AM

Shagufta Sharmeen Tania, British-Bangladeshi writer, shortlisted in Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2022

Read the article on The Daily Star website and on Daily Star Books’ Facebook and Instagram pages.
27 April 2022, 18:00 PM