FLASH FICTION / Chand raat at Mohakhali

On the morning of Thursday, October 7, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh saw the launch of ULAB Press with its maiden publication, Commemorating Sheikh Mujib: The Greatest Bengali of the Millenium (2021).

Tanzanian novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah has just been announced as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature "for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents."

Sand, water, memory—the grainy, elusive grace they share pervades the experiences making up Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam’s second novel, A Passage North (Hamish Hamilton, 2021), shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.

If you are familiar with John Green, you might already know of the immense popularity of the New York Times bestselling author, widely popular for his YA fiction, and often dismissed by critics for the same reason.

I find two distinct types among denizens of the world of letters. There are writers single-mindedly focused on literary production in one genre or more, and others I would call, for want of a better term, literary personalities.

The Politics of Land Law: Poverty and Land Legislation in Bangladesh (University Press Ltd, 2021), a book by Dr Masum Billah, Associate Professor of Jagannath University, was launched in a virtual programme held by UPL on October 2, 2021.

The Abul Mansur Ahmad Smriti Parishad held the award giving ceremony for its fourth annual essay competition, commemorating journalist, author, historian, and politician Abul Mansur Ahmad, yesterday at 4 pm at The Daily Star Center. A day-long workshop on creative writing, editing, and research accompanied the programme. 

Younger people might find this too dated, but I will stick by what  Jorge Luis Borges once said: “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of a Library!”

I have journeyed long and journeyed far looking for sunflowers in the rain — fresh blooms, unwet, singing a song of freedom. 

[Casa di Romeo, Via Arche delle Scaligere: Historians say this was the house of Cagnolo Nogarola, a Guelph supporter, like the Capulets, Juliet’s family. But according to legend and literary texts, the Monetcchi family, or the Montagues, lived here until the 14th century, and the V-shaped battlement was the ‘swallow tail’ symbol of the opposing faction, the Ghibellines, which Romeo’s family supported.

Anyone familiar with Toni Morrison’s work would know about the gutting picture of slavery and racism that she painted with her stories.

Long after I was done reading The Illuminated (HarperCollins India, 2021), by Anindita Ghose, I kept thinking about Girl in White Cotton (2020) by Avni Doshi. If one had to choose any recent novel that captured the crevices of a vacillating mother-daughter relationship accurately, it would be these two.

Words fall short to describe Kamla Bhasin: how does one begin to describe a force of nature like her? Perhaps the simplest way to do so is with the word ‘love’. Kamla was many things to many people—most famous for her fierce feminism, activism, and work in development, rights, peace and justice. However, at the core of it, I believe, Kamla embodied love.

Bangladeshi poet and novelist Farida Majid passed away at a private hospital in Dhaka on the morning of Tuesday, September 28. 

Commemorating Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s 75th birthday, Bangla Academy organised a seminar titled “Sheikh Hasinar Srishtyshilota”, and a book exhibition at the Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad Auditorium in their premises today.

A hawker in Jhenidah, with his own hard-earned money, has established a self-made library at his house in College Para area under Kaliganj municipality. 

tears tasted salty when i was little sometimes i would inspect a drop against the light-

One intriguing question in Albert Camus’s philosophical novel “La Peste” (The Plague) is the idea of death perceived through the sense of rationality.

The year Dadi died, monsoon came early. Days of incessant rain, nights with loud thunderstorm. And when there was no rain, my friend Mira and I sang rain songs and floated paper boats in the puddle.

Fifteen pages into Ali Smith’s Autumn—the first installment of the Seasonal Quartet, we are introduced to the protagonist (to the extent they exist in her books), Elisabeth.