Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

While DC and Marvel, the two big dogs of the comic book industry, have been reigning the superhero comic book genre for decades, the left-of-mainstream publisher Image Comics released issue 1 of Invincible in January 2003. Little did anyone realise back then that this new superhero series, among many already existing ones, would stand out, become a fan favorite, and run for 15 years straight!

We here at Daily Star Books enjoy nothing more than a good short story. Composed to be read in one or two sittings, the short story form lends much to the imagination of its makers, whose creativities, according to many a writer, are only emboldened by the strict word limits intrinsic to the form. The world of film, too, shares in this admiring, as can be seen in over a century’s worth of adaptations—some faithful, some not; some insipid, some inspired—that all have been fuelled by the few thousand words set first to page. In this list is a collection of 10 unmissable adaptations.

Sponsored by IFIC Bank, this year’s Kali O Kolom Torun Kabi O Lokhok Purushkar (Young Poets and Writers Award) will be awarded to Mozaffar Hossain under the “literature” category for his novel Timirjatra, Masud Parvez under the “research” category for Chalachitronama, Ijaz Ahmed Milon under the category of “liberation war literature” for 1971: Bidhasta Bariyay Shudhui Lash Ebong, and Ranjit Sarkar under the “children’s literature” category for School E Muktijuddho Hoyechilo. Submissions for the poetry category were not notable enough to merit awards, judges confirmed.

Home? Of course, I have a home! In fact I have two—one is a conventional brick-veneered house in a suburb of a Victorian country town in Australia.

Not all books fulfil the purpose of exploring metaphors or offering a thrilling ending for readers to remember for ages to come. Some books are simply there to create a bridge between generations of readers, running for even as long as 70 years and more. Some books, like Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, are written at a time when the world is in turmoil. She needed a space to express herself, to gather her thoughts and maybe, someday, pass these thoughts on to others, once the world went back to normal. Unfortunately, Anne along with her family were eventually captured and killed, except for her father Otto Frank, who ended up finding the book and publishing it. Little did she know that her Dutch expressions would be translated to English and many other languages, and touch millions of hearts around the world.

While the world might seem like a place only made for extroverts, who get ahead with the volume of their voices alone, Personal Branding (Odommo Prokash, 2021) is a book that is here to permanently lay that idea to rest. Authors Md Tajdin Hassan, Md Sohan Haidear, and Rafeed Elahi Chowdhury provide a meticulous blueprint for an aspiring professional to make themselves noticed.

On June 3, 2021, Bangladeshi-born British writer Tahmima Anam published her fifth book, The Startup Wife (Canongate, 2021), a novel about coding, entrepreneurship, human relationships, and finding one’s voice.

It is impossible to ascribe any one particular character to Soumitra Chaterjee, as he has immortalised several through his performances.

In the middle of nowhere, among the wide expanse of paddy fields stands a wee nursery—an oasis of sorts, a respite from the outside world.

I was one of those kids at school who could always be found squeezed in between bookshelves at the school library during lunch hour. While my classmates wolfed down actual food in the cafeteria, I devoured the works of Roald Dahl, Enid Blyton, JK Rowling, and the ghostwriters who penned the Nancy Drew series. It was here, amongst these very shelves that I first chanced upon the works of the one author who would pave the way to my fascination with the horror genre: RL Stine.

As the world continues to battle a devastating pandemic, the significance of healthcare technologies can be felt more so than ever. Rapid technological advancement (particularly in the artificial intelligence domain) has been revolutionising this sector, and contactless human activity analysis is one such promising example.

Evolutionary psychology (EP) is not an actual science. A scientific endeavour should invariably include scopes for experimentation that should lead to the nullification, or consolidation, of the hypotheses formulated on the general premises put forth by that branch of science. The be-all and end-all of EP, however, is the pursuit of the optimisation of reproductive fitness of the human individual. In broad strokes, a male human is genetically predisposed to mate with as many female partners as possible due to his seemingly endless reservoir of seeds, while the female human seeks to solely colonise the genetic and financial resources of a superior man because her eggs are in short supply. The tug-of-war that ensues from these two differing reproductive ideals purportedly has the capacity to explain much of what goes on around us. As convenient as it may seem, there is a rather inconvenient rub: you can explain anything and everything by resorting to this line of thought.

On a mid-monsoon morning, with the drizzling sound of rain drops gently touching the earth and the fresh smell of soil, one would like to curl up with a seeping hot cup of cha in one hand and a book in the other. That is how many book lovers would love to spend their ideal holidays. However, it is high time that we think about the ethical and environmental implications of the ways in which we read and reflect on sustainable alternatives. In this age of a growing climate crisis, and Bangladesh being one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change given its geographical location, it is high time that readers think about a more sustainable alternative: e-books.

The map I dream drawing every day, Bangladesh, is yours.

N. S. Vinodh’s newly published book A Forgotten Ambassador in Cairo is the outcome of a fortuitous event. In March 2018, the author was taken for an unscheduled visit to the tomb of an Indian Ambassador, in Cairo’s “City of the Dead.”

the postman plods his weary way eternal bag slung over shoulder comes up to me at the unearthly hour when evening azan brings dusk tumbling down like playful children somersaulting

There is something very interesting about how certain smells take you back in time, very much like a time machine would, if it ever existed.

Five years since the release of The Bones of Grace (Daily Star Books, 2016), the Bengal Trilogy author Tahmima Anam has just published her fourth novel, The Startup Wife (Canongate, 2021), this week. Anam will be in conversation with journalist Georgina Godwin at today’s Hay Festival session at 3 PM GMT (9 PM Bangladesh time). The event is virtual and free to register.

An 81-year-old woman is strolling about in her farm, reeling from nostalgia, dead leaves crunching under her feet. She is planting newly bloomed flowers in an empty pig pen.

It was during the peak of the coronavirus crisis, amidst the punishing heat of June, that we geared up to launch Daily Star Books on this very day in 2020.