FLASH FICTION / Chand raat at Mohakhali

The River Tales (2021) is a series of graphic novels for children, commissioned by Asia Foundation’s ‘Let’s Read Asia’ digital library project and produced by HerStory Foundation in an effort to raise awareness about Bangladesh’s heritage and culture. Sarah Anjum Bari, editor of Star Books, speaks to Katerina Don, curator at HerStory Foundation, writer Anita Amreen, and artist Sayeef Mahmud about their processes of research, writing, and graphic designing for the series.

Abdus Selim, a noted Bangladeshi translator, playwright, essayist and educationist, has, of late, come up with a collection of five plays in Bangla translation titled Panch Manchanubad (Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, 2021).

“The thing was that everyone knew Julita’s parents hadn’t died in any accident: Julita’s folks had disappeared. They were disappeared. They’d been disappeared”.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and the world’s fourth-wealthiest person, has written a new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster (Knopf, 2021) in which he cites the looming catastrophe of radical global climate change and sets out an incredibly ambitious goal that he argues is the only possible path for our species’ survival: achieving zero.

The 156-page hardback edition will be available in Bangla, English, and German.

A solemn tribute to mothers and to our nation’s unrelenting humanity, Hussain’s novel shows us the people and the Bangladesh we could more often be.

The event witnessed participation from people of all ages, from toddlers to adults.

Tagore has remained ceaselessly relevant to us not just for his contributions to Bengali literature but also for issues relating to society, politics, gender, education and even environment.

Doctor Mahtab Uddin looked at the luminescent hands of his watch: 9 pm. Not that late, he thought and sat down on the circular cement platform not far from the patient’s house.

Language and education are prime markers in identifying one’s participation in society and politics. Having just commemorated the International Mother Language Day on February 21, that too on the verge of our nation’s silver jubilee, it is perhaps a unique opportunity for us to question, reflect, and make changes to our politics on language, education, and social identities.

Vivek Oji, the titular character in Akwaeke Emezi’s second novel, is dead; this is stated in the title, the first line, and throughout the book. However, in every chapter, Vivek keeps coming alive, images of him rising out of the text’s surface only to dissolve again.

In this last week of February, a shared sense of optimism, however cautious, is pervading much of the world and indeed our own. Slowly, and now safely, more and more events and programmes are opening their doors. Book enthusiasts can enjoy the following events this week:

After half a century from where we began, Daily Star Books will spend all of this year—the 50th year of Bangladesh—revisiting, celebrating, and analyzing some of the books that played pivotal roles in documenting the Liberation War of 1971 and the birth of this nation.

Olpo Kothar Golpo Gaan includes 200 of these iconic songs.

On February 22, 2021, The British Library hosted “Sultana’s Dream: Contemporary Fiction of Bangladeshi Origin”, a free virtual session on Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist utopian novella.

Fuleshwary Priyanandini recounted the stories she was told by her mother.

We reached the crematorium on the riverside that takes a mischievous turn near a local market. The hushed night was deep and dark.

The intellectual killing had left the country with severe brain injury in December 1971. We were devoid of cultural, moral and professional leadership all at once.

The natural and political world bloom to life in the pages of Ali Smith’s Spring (Penguin Random House, 2019), the brilliant third installment in her seasonal quartet of books.

I stumbled across a short story written by Aoko Matsuda called “Quite a Catch” in the Wasafiri literary magazine last month.