What to read / What we’re reading this week
14 May 2026, 00:00 AM
What to read
Book Review: Nonfiction / Fara Dabhoiwala’s history misses the one thing that truly matters
1 May 2026, 00:00 AM
Non-fiction review
Reflection / Harper Lee at 100: An enduring echo of justice
28 April 2026, 20:10 PM
Literature
Tribute / Humayun Azad and the courage to dissent
24 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
Interview / Writing what silence carries: Mohua Chinappa on memory, pain, and inheritance
24 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Features
Not just child’s play: Bengal’s rhymes as cultural memory
13 April 2026, 20:12 PM
Culture
Book Review: Nonfiction / Love, wounds, and the making of ‘Hemingway’s Women’
10 April 2026, 00:00 AM
Books & Literature
An Ekushey Book Fair breaking with tradition
21 September 2025, 13:05 PM
Books & Literature
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / An outlandish jumble of cults, cannibalism, and colonial violence
19 March 2025, 18:00 PM
Books
BOOK REVIEW: NONFICTION / The making of Bangladesh in the global sixties
19 March 2025, 18:00 PM
Books
The bitter-sweet world of self-help books
The concept of self-improvement is by no means a new one, rather the notion is in the foundational structures of moral well-being. The centuries old Socrates commandment, “Know Thyself” is at the very crux of what self-improvement consists of.
1 August 2023, 14:55 PM
I AM FROM…
I am from the 19 houses in 15 districts, none of which could become "my home, sweet home"
1 August 2023, 13:00 PM
Of nineteen thirty-four
The motor car is always a thing of darkness,
In the sun and lighted roads of day
And in the luminous gas at night though
31 July 2023, 14:55 PM
Acquaintance
I found a gold pendant which I decided to keep. I wore it around my neck and looked in the mirror. Did my mother ever wear this pendant?
30 July 2023, 14:55 PM
The Potenga harlots’ tale
In Koshobi, Jaladas paints the damp and dejected walls of Strandroad, Shahebpara, which is a local red-light district more than 300 years old.
29 July 2023, 14:55 PM
Windless hair
I frolic and burrow myself inside the vastness of the fields
And the prairies that stand tall
Of spaces heavily concentrated, and then stretched out to infinity
29 July 2023, 12:55 PM
Ruins & renaissance
The hurt remained beneath my skin like an unwritten revelation—never acknowledged, never tended to;
28 July 2023, 18:00 PM
On a romantic night of self
It has been more than a few weeks since I arrived in London for my Master’s, and I still miss my friends, family, and acquaintances back home.
28 July 2023, 18:00 PM
Remembering Mahasweta Devi: The blueprint of subaltern activism and literature
While novelists such as Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and Sanjeeb Chandra Chattopadhyay adopted an ambiguous position on caste discourse in their writing, Mahasweta Devi's fiction explicitly delineates the Dalits and adivasis as political, social, and psychological beings embroiled in multiple levels of oppression.
28 July 2023, 05:00 AM
Bad kids, worse adults
If you are looking for something different from your next read—especially if you’re interested in reading a story that offers a window into another Asian culture—then Bad Kids by Zijin Chen might be a good choice. This book was an instant bestseller when it was published in China, and has since been adapted for the small screen.
26 July 2023, 18:00 PM
Leafing through this life
This century had started 14 years ago—and unlike the previous one—the world was not drafting 19-year-olds to a great war so that they could die in the trenches.
26 July 2023, 18:00 PM
'Small World City': A new speculative literary magazine on the horizon
The creators of Small World City believe that Dhaka’s literary community deserves better recognition and representation, both domestically and globally.
26 July 2023, 14:42 PM
All characters are fictitious
Suddenly, a giant shadow covered up the ground beneath their feet. When she looked up, she couldn’t see the face of the figure until it came closer and sat on the edge of the branch they were sitting on.
25 July 2023, 12:55 PM
For a better future
Sentiments are best preserved for people who can pay for extra baggage.
24 July 2023, 14:55 PM
An afternoon with Abeer Hoque and Nupu Press: A celebration of creativity
The cozy atmosphere was set up by Bookworm Bangladesh, with the owner Amina Rahman kicking things off. Both Press and Hoque read out excerpts from their own books.
23 July 2023, 14:50 PM
‘Sisters in the mirror’: Elora Shehabuddin’s response to the West’s idea of feminism
The book is especially relevant in the context of Bangalee women’s life because usually while talking about Islam and women, the West fails to take the South Asian Bangalee women into account.
22 July 2023, 14:55 PM
Ode to an ariel dancer
Clouds in heaven bow and billow around your feet, and you-
glide through, oblivious to their ethereal presence.
21 July 2023, 18:00 PM
Women’s revolution
The theocracy is crumbling in its seat
21 July 2023, 18:00 PM
Them two dogs
I am asked where I am headed. The expression in the lady’s eyes suggests this is not the first time I was asked the question. I stand there, wondering if the pits around her eyes—white as the sun—are caused by the likes of me, and I tell her where I’m headed.
21 July 2023, 18:00 PM
Of losses and languages: reviewing Han Kang’s 'Greek Lessons'
There is a sense of inexorable catharsis, and dare I say— spirituality—when the protagonists begin their journey into one another since they alone embody the ideas and predicaments of the text.
21 July 2023, 09:00 AM