The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

Rupert Grey, a descendant of Charles Grey and best known professionally as a leading libel and copyright lawyer stood against this statement. “If Bangladesh is a basket case,” Grey tells The Daily Star, “then it is so in the best possible way.” For him, the term collapses under the sheer vitality of the country. A single square metre of a Bangladeshi street, he argues, holds more energy than entire neighbourhoods in London. Where life in England often unfolds in rigid routines, Bangladesh thrives in spontaneity—where a hanging lighter at a tea stall can become a moment of shared choreography.

In Dhaka, the traffic doesn’t run; it limps. At seven in the morning, the buses are full, coughing black air, CNGs wheezing past, rickshaws threading between them like colourful tops.

Emily’s right leg trembled as she stood alone on the wooden stage, the darkness that surrounded her felt almost alive.

Inner monologue: “Life is a bit sometimes. You don’t know what might happen the next moment.

My memoirs of 2025, do you know I want to forget you?

Lessons in Chemistry is a powerful read for anyone who feels alone in a male-dominated world. For those who have been vilified for having a voice, dignity, and the courage to exist unapologetically in a world that resists change, this novel proves galvanising.

First on our list, we have the fiction debut of Jennette McCurdy, author of the widely fascinating and heartbreakingly hilarious memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died (Simon & Schuster, 2022). A 17-year-old is the protagonist of this story, a girl with too much hunger and not enough steadiness, who walks into a creative writing classroom and latches onto the one adult who seems to notice her.

There is a curious bite to the air now. Notwithstanding the terrifying levels of AQI that threaten to permanently damage our lungs, heart, and brain, the air feels promising—of new beginnings, of renewed potential, of reevaluating the old and embracing the new.

On January 18, 2026 novelist and essayist Md Ashanur Rahman was awarded The International Creative Arts Award 2025 by the International Creative Arts, Language & Development Research Centre of the University of Dhaka for his outstanding contribution to literature and its role in Enriching Minds and Inspiring Lives. 

The six-week intensive program offers beginners and budding writers mentor-led guidance in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, focusing on Bangladeshi cultural narratives

To love is to hold the knife To love is to do the math To love is to carry a box full of fruits To love is to buy flowers, Either way you carry the burden of it, of love.

One morning, God asked His angels to make a heart. They did not know what a heart was.

So, Ma and I had our eyes glued to our screen while Reaz smeared toothpaste over his face and chanted slogans in front of his school.

The book features 15 chapters covering essential topics such as attachment styles, love languages, and shadow work.

It is a known fact that not all historical documents, even memoirs of prominent politicians, researchers, authors, or historians, are prepared from a purely objective viewpoint. Every author brings their own perspective and analysis, shaped by a different outlook. It is often observed that history, written by the winners and the defeated groups, is always contradictory. Seldom do the winners genuinely incorporate the views and analysis of the defeated, and vice versa. This inherent conflict is a primary cause of distortion and manipulation of historical facts.

Between Two Lives is a collection of short stories by Mojaffor Hossain, a notable fiction writer of Bengali literature. The stories of the collection are translated into English by Haroonuzzaman, who has rendered quite a few important literary works from Bangladesh. Besides being a translator, he is also an academic.

On the chilly afternoon of January 10, Bookworm Bangladesh, in collaboration with Voices Shaping Society, hosted the book launch of The July Resolve, a collection of 36 narratives that depicts the strength and struggles of people from all walks of life during the Monsoon Revolution of 2024.

Spectral land—you are bleeding hollow; flesh and bone at the precipice of ruin,

I never considered reading authors’ letters. “How can personal letters be considered literature?”–I thought.

Kazi Nazrul Islam’s Bangla poem “Bidrohi” (first published in January 1922), in Bijli magazine during British colonial rule, is more than just anti-imperialist literature—it is a striking philosophical rendition.