Fiction / Sahara
29 August 2026
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Fiction
I have not eaten today. Not on purpose. I will eat later. I simply have not thought of it yet.
Poetry / The finality of nostalgia
29 August 2026
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Poetry
Poetry / Dinner time and death
29 August 2026
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Poetry
Literary Curtains / Patriarchy inversed: Reimagining Rokeya’s Ladyland in 2026
23 August 2026
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Books & Literature
Book Review: Fiction / A novel of radical softness
20 August 2026
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Books & Literature
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Cooking up heat
20 August 2026
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Books & Literature
Event Report / In Transit: The Third Annual Slam Poetry at North South University
19 August 2026
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News
Essay / Poet Shamsur Rahman’s drama translation: Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Marco Millions’
15 August 2026
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Essay
Interview / In conversation with Sonia Bahl: Author of ‘Eighteen Inches Apart’
What becomes increasingly evident across Bahl’s three novels is her sustained fascination with the emotional significance of almosts and maybes.
Event Report / Letters across a lifetime: The 20th staging of Love Letters
21 June 2026
On June 19, 2026, the occasion was the 20th staging of “Love Letters”, A. R. Gurney’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, translated and adapted into Bangla by writer and translator Professor Abdus Selim. Directed by veteran theatre actor and director Tropa Majumdar and staged by Group Theatre at the Dr. Nilima Ibrahim Auditorium, the production brought together the acting power couple, Ramendu Majumdar and Ferdausi Majumdar. Their performances transformed what could have easily been a simple reading of letters into something deeply intimate and profoundly human.
News Report / NSU DEML offers certificate course in creative writing for the second time
16 June 2026
The Department of English and Modern Languages (DEML) at North South University is pleased to announce the second offering of its Certificate Course in Creative Writing, set to begin in Summer 2026. This innovative seven-week intensive program is designed to cultivate the next emerging literary voices by providing a structured, mentor-led environment that emphasises Bangladesh’s rich cultural narratives.
The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days
18 June 2026
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The Shelf
You know when the sky trades its brightness for a low, silver hue, and you wrap your fingers tightly around your tea, seeking that small, steady pulse of warmth. This is the essence of healing fiction. Often rooted in the Japanese concept of iyashikei, these stories focus on the quiet spirit through small, everyday moments. You may have already heard of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or We’ll Prescribe You a Cat. While those popular favourites have opened a door for many, there are a few other tales worth the read.
Reflections / In the age of AI allegations
13 June 2026
Fiction / Body Selim
18 April 2026
UPL launches Ananda Bikash Chakma’s new book, ‘Carpus Mahal Theke Shanti Chukti'
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.
12 September 2021
The Plague in Bengal: Literary Glimpses and Anecdotes
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.
10 September 2021
Obhoy’s Insomnia
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.
10 September 2021
The allure of the campus novel
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.
8 September 2021
Bookcentric announces September 2021 reading challenge
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.
8 September 2021
Susanna Clarke's 'Piranesi': How real is the world we imagine?
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.
8 September 2021
Jalal-Ud-Din Ahmad: A headmaster’s memoir
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.
8 September 2021
JCB Prize for Literature announces 2021 longlist
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.
8 September 2021
Hardback edition released of ‘Inherited Memories’, Goethe-Institut and Zubaan Books’ project on the 1947 partition
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.
5 September 2021
Story of Bengal and Bengalis: The Bengali Homeland and its Inhabitants
With the onset of the new millennium in the 21st century, there seems to be a revival of interest in the space, in the eastern part of South Asia, historically known as Bengal, and the people who inhabit this space, the Bengalis.
3 September 2021
FEMALE WARRIORS
I had decided to write a brief review of Selima Chowdhury’s book when it was first published, but what with one thing or another making me put it off, a couple of years rolled by, and we found ourselves caught up in a pandemic with no end in sight.
3 September 2021
ABUL MANSUR AHMAD: Our Language and our Literature
On the occasion of the birth anniversary of author, journalist, and politician Abul Mansur Ahmad (1898-1979) on September 3, 2021, we publish an excerpt from his essay, "Our Language and Our Literature", first published in The Concept magazine in 1965 and later collected in the book, 'End of a Betrayal and Restoration of Lahore Resolution' (1975).
1 September 2021
Radio, ghazals, and “Islami gaan”: What Nazrul’s shift to music said about his syncretism
The adoption of the ghazal by Nazrul, with renewed fervour in the late ’20s and ’30s, signaled an understanding that his earlier literary and linguistic world was an impermanent one, as was a politics in which the unity of Hindus and Muslims was achieved through an appeal to a shared culture and language.
1 September 2021
Radhika Singha's 'The Coolie's Great War': The forgotten ones of World War I
As of December 31, 1919, a total of 1.4 million Indians were recruited to various theatres of the First World War. Among them, approximately 563,369 were “followers or non-combatants”.
1 September 2021
Elif Shafak’s ‘The Island of Missing Trees’: Fragments of an uprooted people
The people we meet in Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees (Viking, 2021) are haunted by terrible tragedies from several years past, by a beautiful island divided into two.
1 September 2021
BOOKCENTRIC READING CHALLENGE: Readers review nautical books
From August 2021, Daily Star Books was excited to have joined Bookcentric’s monthly reading challenge, which invites readers to read and review books following each month’s designated theme. Under August’s theme of books with nautical themes, here is what our readers read—and reviewed—last month!
1 September 2021
In ‘Toward Happy Civilization’, a portrait of desperation
Typical of any Samanta Schweblin story from her International Booker-longlisted collection, Mouthful of Birds (OneWorld, 2019), a sense of anxiety is strongly perceptible here, especially through the characters Fi and Pe. One grows afraid of them as they start showing both lovingly caring and Big Brother-like tendencies. What heightens the ominous halo surrounding these two is the hostages’ inability to translate their emotions; why would someone who provides for you not give you a way out?
31 August 2021
At long last, a ‘Foundation’
Originally published as a series of short stories in the 1940s, the Foundation series—expanded later with a string of prequels and sequels—became Asimov’s greatest contribution to the genre and remains, to this day, one of the greatest reads for any SF connoisseur.
30 August 2021
Writer and diplomat Ataur Rahman no more
Ataur Rahman, well known humour writer, diplomat, and former director general of the postal department, passed away from a Coronavirus infection yesterday. He was 79 years old.
29 August 2021
Writer Sheikh Abdul Hakim passes away
Renowned author and translator Sheikh Abdul Hakim passed away at his Madartek residence in Dhaka yesterday afternoon.
28 August 2021
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