Children's literature is purposefully crafted for a segment of society without political or economic clout—individuals devoid of wealth, suffrage, or command over the levers of finance and governance.

It is deeply saddening that this discouragement to read fiction is coming at a time when we as a population are suffering from a crisis in empathy.

The lineup of mentors includes a range of writers from South Asia, currently based in and publishing from all over the globe.

My father’s ancestors were Ayurvedic medicine men from a remote corner of the North Bengal. A few generations ago, one of them had cured a long-lasting ailment of the Raja of Taherpur and had received, as a reward, a large chunk of agricultural land or “joat” next to the mighty Joshoi Beel.

Feminism and literature share a profound connection as literature gives voice to the experiences of women, allowing us to understand their perspective. However, despite the abundance of information in the technological age, the promotion of feminist books remains a challenge in Bangladesh, often facing criticism from conservatives.

As the guests arrived, the room brightened up and a conversation began that would eventually go on to deeply invest in exploring the nature of power and of defiantly opposing the status quo.

As he had actively protested against Ayub's dictatorship, and was indeed jailed, he felt compelled to protest against Ershad's dictatorship through his poetry.

A young white officer asks her in heavily accented Bangla, “What’s the purpose of your visit?”

Their apartment was located on the ground floor of a three-storied building whose yellowish paint looked as if it was peeling off on its own.

Textbooks in Bangladesh tend to be written by foreign authors. Those that are written by Bangladeshi authors, emphasise on examples in a non-Bangladesh context.

“Can one break a country...Will the earth bleed?” asks eight-year-old Lenny in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India (1988)–a tale about Partition. “No one’s going to break India. It’s not made of glass!”

In exchange for the presidential suites at the Ritz and so on, the men holding our city keys have already opened our skies to all that may come.

To sit on thy laurels seems apposite, Yet to dig graves for perceptive pleasure resemble a breach Of lines bridging the things learned, unlearned.

The novels are small revolutions, each seeking to energise and awaken the language. Together, they offer startling portraits of the current.

One can find Rabindranath anywhere—he’s there in the words we whisper, in the tunes we hum, in the ethos we believe in, in the ideal of the human we wish we were. 

Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, written between 1907 and 1909, reveals the ways in which Tagore addresses the all-important issues of his time—national identity formation, the coming together of people over time, and obstacles or barriers put in the way of the progress of a nation. The novel captures Tagore’s fascination with envisioning a future based on human amity or moitri, one where the powerless and the dispossessed transcend the barriers of division and distrust.

Listening is stretching beyond ourselves and another, and if we were to listen to printed words on paper as non-verbal cues of communication, it too emits lower frequencies that moves us, beyond the I, towards new modes of knowledge.

With statistics backing her up, Broussard does a stellar job of portraying this bias for the readers with stories from individuals who have faced such discrimination. The book opens with the story of Robert Julian-Borchak Williams who gets wrongfully identified by a police facial recognition technology and gets taken into custody.

Having read an account of someone who stood by her husband and helped him through an assisted suicide out of love was extremely heart-wrenching.

We walk past the singing bells and our chambers, Blind to the perils beyond our walls.