The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

I couldn’t help but think of the cultural significance of the word “ma” in our own society today; it is lead-heavy with meaning and so frequently invoked—from commonplace addresses of tender respect for women to motherly depictions of the landscape of Bengal in artworks, songs, and films

Throughout my school years, Ammu would assign a different writer for me to read during each vacation

In a lecture, Rabindranath proclaimed, “I hope that some dreamer will spring from among you and preach a message of love and therewith, overcoming all differences..."

Like little boys racing against red-orange hues against dark, dark blue to spread the day’s news;

For all that melts in this month of fallen petals rising, you’re a paperclip, hanging on the edge of my bookshelf, bent into a heart.

These decisions hint at an implicit belief that certain genres or readerships require the exclusion of certain genders, whether due to artistic limitations, market considerations, or adherence to established genre conventions.

Faiqa Mansab’s second novel, The Sufi Storyteller, is a quiet triumph—both elegiac and urgent, intimate and expansive. It arrives as a natural evolution from her acclaimed debut, This House of Clay and Water (Penguin Random House India, 2017), and yet it stands apart, not merely in ambition but in execution. Where the former was steeped in the politics of desire and gender within Lahore’s elite and unseen spaces, The Sufi Storyteller ventures across continents and metaphysical thresholds to bring forth something more elusive: the sacred, storied terrain of the inner world.

Other Pulitzer Prize winners in the arts included Percival Everett in the Fiction category for his novel 'James', Branden Jacobs-Jenkins in the Drama category for his play 'Purpose', and Marie Howe in the Poetry category for her collection, 'New and Selected Poems'

31 years old moss-covered headstone

Pride of place above the fireplace in the sitting room of our little house in distant Blighty is a painting from North Bengal.

“I’m scared” a voice calls out.

How Haymitch Abernathy and Katniss Everdeen mirror each other’s legacy

How does one write about history? Certainly, there is the straight-forward, head-on approach, where a historical period is confronted directly by populating it with historical/fictional characters and portraying the times through their eyes.

All Quiet on the Western Front (Little, Brown and Company, 1929), a semi-autobiographical novel authored by a German World War I veteran, Erich Maria Remarque, is one of the greatest anti-war works of literature—one that was published nearly a century back and still holds relevance today

Remembering the stateless poet Daud Haider

Poet Daud Haider, known for his timeless poem Janmo-i Amar Ajanmo Pap (My Birth, My Eternal Sin), died while undergoing treatment at a Berlin hospital early yesterday (Bangladesh time).

Review of ‘Reframing My Worth: Memoir of a Bangladeshi-Canadian Woman’ by Habiba Zaman (FriesenPress, 2024)

standing at the bus stop with my shoes full of water

Mother, why is our sky so different?

Farid Shaheb earned a fair bit at the office today. These days, because of the Anti Corruption Commission and newspaper journalists’ incessant pestering, he can no longer directly take the money offered to him.