FLASH FICTION / Chand raat at Mohakhali

I don't have it in me I'm a fire that can't ignite I'm a torch that doesn't ignite the light

I grew up with pickle jars

At the end of the waterfall of dying lights from the celestial fireball,

I met Olga Grjasnowa early this November when she came to a program at ULAB jointly hosted by the University and the Goethe Institute Bangladesh. She had a couple of sessions at the Dhaka Literary Festival too.

Each time on the eve of a new semester, it is not absolutely uncommon for any university student to feel overwhelmed for many reasons. Faces of the teachers from the bygone

Unnoticed I am going away/ Just as nobody saw me come./I clasp my hands and bow my head/As clouds puff up in the west…

Why is there no one around? Why is no human being in view? But there are still those in the rooms set aside for them. No changes were visible thus in the quarter where Lord Husayn's kinsmen and women had been kept.

Under the perky moon, Sitting by my beloved, Surrounded with the guitar

“A girl,” the nurse had said and the mother had frowned. “A girl,” she turned those words over in her head, mumbled them slowly. “A girl,” she said to the nurse, “I hope the world would be fair to her.” The nurse looked motionless as if she heard those words coming out of every mother's mouth.

The harmonium is massive in size. Antique and made of German reeds. Though time's whiplash left dark marks on it, its exquisite face still attracts its viewers.

I was scratching my head as I completed reading the first story in Wasi Ahmed's anthology of short stories entitled The Over Takers. I was scratching my head when I had finished the eleventh tale, also the last in the engrossing volume.

“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? Tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”

-“Wonder! What a wonder!”

On Wednesday, October 10, 2018, the much awaited longlist for South Asian Literature 2018 was announced by eminent historian and academic Rudrangshu Mukherjee, the chair of the jury panel for the current year for the distinguished prize.

I do not write. I am not a writer. I am an active thought, willing to reveal through words the enigmas of human lives and the perplexities of women's stories.

The next day, Lebu had really blasted a peto at the party's office. Well, he had tried to. The peto had fallen off his maimed hand, right in front of the table. It didn't bounce — rather sort of slumped — like a ball in a slow spin. Everyone shrank in fear. Babluda, the secretary, had pulled his legs up on the bench. He pressed his palms against his ears and stared, wide-eyed.

A reader can perhaps assume from the back flap of Fayeza Hasanat's debut collection of short stories that the pieces revolve around a woman's position in society, familial relationships and identity that is constructed for her.

We read about this girl. That she may have a name doesn't matter. What matters is that she is a'middle-sister', 'middle' as in relative, as in younger sister to someone, older sister to someone, sister-in-law to someone, and daughter to someone else.

Neil Gaiman ticked all the boxes on the “celebrity author” checklist long before he garnered mainstream fame. He guest starred in two episodes of “The Simpsons”, wrote multiple bestselling novels, penned one of the greatest comic book series of all time, and (what he considers to be one of his greatest achievements) scripted an episode of Doctor Who.

Two years ago, on a cool afternoon in November, driving towards the cantonment gate at the intersection past Radisson on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, a sign caught my attention.