FLASH FICTION / Chand raat at Mohakhali

Netflix’s new comedy-drama, The Chair (2021), should fit right up the alley of any and possibly every lit major or graduate.

Identity is mercurial: it shifts and morphs into a new being at the change of a breeze. That change is glacial, and often happens on its own volition; but one can also grasp a new identity, hold it tight till it engulfs the old, and thereby change the trajectory of their life completely.

Oorja, as her name suggests, is a bright young girl who is the main protagonist of the story. The novel begins with her travelling back to India after her mother’s demise. She reaches home only to find her father missing. The rest of the book is a journey of love, healing, and rediscovery of her own self. 

My first reaction to the knowledge that someone would attempt to re-tell the story of The Illiad appeared to be a foolhardy venture- one that was doomed to failure because it seemed too challenging and gargantuan a task, but within the first few chapters I could see Pat Barker’s skill in bringing the story of the Illiad to a modern context.

Meanwhile I looked for space, for a new frontier.

This dawn is unvarying, lovely, peaceful, dewy, Morning sky has opened its store of breathing clouds,

The mystical riddle that was the film, The Green Knight (2021), was initially just that for me: a riddle. It was one of those films where I felt like my experience of watching it would be more rewarding if I had some idea of the actual story it was based on.

Jointly edited by Ahasan Hydar and Snigdhadip Chakraborty, Ek Ashchorjo Phul Binoy Majumdar (Ashroy Prokashon, 2021) is a valuable book on the life and work of Bengali poet Binoy Majumdar, who was born on September 17, 1934.

Sufibad O Sufider Shorup Shondhaney (‘In search of the nature of Sufism and Sufis’), written by Syed Rezaul Karim and published in 2020 by Bangla Academy, is a welcome addition to the meager collection of books written in Bangla on Sufism.

I am convinced that while writing her book, The Begum and the Dastan (Westland Publications, 2021), Tarana Husain Khan’s aim was to leave her readers in a literary stupor, dizzy and yearning for more.

The 2021 Booker Prize shortlist was revealed on September 15, with six of the previously announced 13-novel longlist making the cut. Each of the six authors are to receive GBP 2,500, while the winner, to be announced on November 3 at the BBC Radio Theatre, will receive GBP 5,000. Notably, and much like 2020’s competition, only one British author is named in the shortlist.

Dr Anand Bikash Chakma, Associate Professor at the department of History, Chittagong University, launched his book, Carpus Mahal Theke Shanti Chukti: Parbotto Chattogram-e Rashtrio Nitir Itihash (University Press Limited, 2021), at a virtual programme organised by UPL on September 9, 2021. 

About 122 years before the Covid-19 pandemic Bengal was struck by bubonic plague, which has left its traces in Bangla fiction and life writings.

An abrupt noise woke Obhoy up in the middle of the night and throughout the rest of the night his eyelids would not shut. What was the matter with him? He had been sound asleep; then suddenly he woke up as if someone was battering at the gate of his senses.

In Susannah Clarke’s Piranesi, whose review rests atop this article, the narrator labels time not by calendar dates but by the things that happen to him—the birds who visit his wing of the world, the tides that come swinging or gently.

Dhaka’s Bookcentric library has announced their September 2021 reading challenge in collaboration with Daily Star Books. For this month, Bookcentric will look at books that feature a “utopia” or, conversely, a “dystopia”, given their thematic similarities, from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) and Ursula K Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974) to Begum Rokeya’s Sultana’s Dream (1905), among others.

In the 1700s, there lived an Italian artist, architect, and archaeologist who saw in the world far more than what was in it. Giovanni Battista Piranesi captured his world, among other things, through prints: the most famous of which are the Views, an imitation of the classical remains of Rome, and the imaginary renditions of the Prisons.

Pursuit of Excellence in Teaching: A Memoir (University Press Limited, 2021) chronicles the life and legacy of Jalal-Ud-Din Ahmad, a gifted educator who grew up to be the first graduate in his village in Feni, East Pakistan, and whose humble beginnings culminated in his winning the Presidential Award for “Best Headmaster in Pakistan” in 1967.

The annual competition, which has been hailed as “India's most valuable literature prize”, offers INR 2,500,000 (USD 35,000) to its winner for distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in or translated to English.

Zubaan Books has released a hardback edition of Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East, concerning the still-felt ramifications of the 1947 partition.