Book Review: Nonfiction / The courage to speak: The life, ideas, and legacy of Ambassador M. Serajul Islam

25 August 2026 Reviews
Ambassador Islam passionately believed that a nation of 180 million people should chart its own path, maintaining good but never subservient relationships with global powers. He was acutely aware of “our traits as a nation” but remained firm in his belief that the country could only thrive under Lincoln's doctrine of government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
News Report / Kazuo Ishiguro set to return with new novel in 2027
20 June 2026
Ishiguro’s novels have, over his 40-plus-year career, ranged from historical fiction to fantasy to science fiction.
Event Report / Dhaka Zine Mela 2026: A celebration of creativity and community
11 June 2026
On June 6 and 7, 2026, at Goethe-Institut, Dhanmondi, Zine Mela Dhaka 2026 was held, organised by Sister Library (Dhaka) and Colors Publishing. The two-day event brought together independent artists, writers, and creators to celebrate self-publishing, artistic expression, and community engagement.

Bleak realities in the shadow of China’s rise

In May 2022, Joanna Chiu won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for her debut nonfiction book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder (Hurst, November 2021).
31 August 2022

No country for honest men in Shahidul Zahir’s “Woodcutter and Crows”

Prolific writer, novelist, and pioneer of postmodern fiction in Bangla literature, Shahidul Zahir, is known for the unique practice of magic realism in his works.
31 August 2022

The dangerous game of Marlon James—Can genre fiction be great literature?

James seems to be saying to the establishment, to the same generous folks who once gave him the Booker and propelled him to the stratosphere: Go ahead and say this is not literature, I dare you. 
31 August 2022
31 August 2022

Writer becomes bestseller after his own employer buys copies worth 9 crore

Chulbul, who has written 29 books of poetry in his career spanning 9 months, characterises his style as introspective, post-modernist neo-absurdism.
30 August 2022

Recipe of Panta Bhat with a Few Survival Tips During a Riot

Hermit-crab fiction use ready-made templates such as recipes, shopping lists, meeting minutes and other forms and is a great way for experimenting with form in short fiction.
29 August 2022

‘Beshya O Bidhushir Golpo’ questions a gender-biassed society

The book contains important research on the type of language used by mainstream media in reporting news of rape, torture, and abuse of women.
28 August 2022

Rage is not singular for immigrants in Sabaa Tahir's novel

“What’s the word for when someone drinks so much, they are ruining your best friend’s life? Or the word for a man so vengeful about his own past that he wants to destroy your future? What’s the word for a woman who was sick for months, but refused to go to the doctor until it was too late?"
27 August 2022

'Celebrating Relationships' is a cookbook for a cause

Every recipe is credited to the person it is inspired from and the country it is staple to. The method of preparation of the dishes is detailed and very well explained, especially for amateur cooks.
27 August 2022

What to read if you liked watching ‘Hawa’

The film is a deep dive into Bangladesh’s rivers and the fishermen who hold up the country’s underbelly, along with the revelry, the mythologies that run across the folk culture of majhis and Bede communities. 
27 August 2022

I wish the world were a painting

Now I wonder the world is a painting, an imaginary chamber where captives sing, like a caged dove obeying a hunter enticing free birds to live in bliss. And then I see darkness of dusk fade away as the sun begins to peek in the east.
26 August 2022

Disrupted Nature and Community in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is well-known to the literary audience and beyond as the tale of a brilliant and mad scientist who created a horrible monster that in the end brought destruction for its creator.
26 August 2022

Love at Second Sight

Dream is a mystery sometimes unfolded amidst creeping eeriness unstipulated to the seemingly compos mentis. As long as my stint in your thought bears a meaning for life because I wish to worship the sanctity of your feeling for me and tree,
26 August 2022

Two upcoming Pinocchio films—why does he still resonate?

Zemeckis' version will likely be a comforting trip into nostalgia and sentiment, an ode to the power of the human heart to do the right thing despite life's many temptations. At the same time, del Toro's will be a dark fairytale with troubling implications, examining how we puppets can learn to think for ourselves.
26 August 2022

What impact did the Partition have on Dhaka's book trade?

The impact of the 1947 Partition was felt in every aspect of Dhaka's printing and publishing business, and the book trade in the new provincial capital took a momentous turn. How did it impact the booksellers, printers, and the material being published? 
26 August 2022

Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Lapvona’: A fairy tale for realists

Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.
25 August 2022

‘The danger in telling a single Partition story is that it completely erases the individual’

1947 was overtaken almost immediately by the language question, and the question of identity.
25 August 2022

An Untold Story of Sri Lanka

This is a memoir of Sumaiya Samad Mehtaj who visited Sri Lanka this past June as part of a conference team. She was moved by the Lankans handling the critical situation of their country and decided to write this piece.
24 August 2022

What HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ promises to bring to the world of ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’

Viewers of House of the Dragon won’t find themselves in a similar predicament as the events surrounding the second Targaryen Civil War have already been documented in full in Fire & Blood (2018).  
23 August 2022

Fahmida Azim “enjoys drawing real people living extraordinary lives”

The comics portray the experiences of the Uyghur community under the anti-Muslim police state imposed in China. The story includes testimonies given to the United Nations Human Rights Council and condensed by Anthony Del Col and art direction by Josh Adams.
22 August 2022
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