In “Gandhi and Nehru: The Uses of English,” an essay written by Sunil Khilnani from the 2010 collection of essays edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, A Concise History of Indian Literature in English, we are told about how the two leading figures of Indian independence not only used the English language to write back against empire, but played important roles in “the long, uneasy and interminable task of making English an Indian language.”

A backstreet, wet at nightfall — a silk sari unfurled. Iridescent black. Autumn leaves — Splashes of gold under streetlights. Rain in Lund Is the same as in a Dhaka backstreet.

From the tree I’ve climbed only once Years ago, at the height of childhood innocence I scraped and bruised my way to the top Monsoon soaking my skin To survey this timeworn town Of rusty tin huts and clay I listened to the storm-created symphony on the roof Nature’s old-fashioned xylophone And as the storm grew heavy,

“This weather app is a life saver, I’m telling you! Look how sunny this weekend will be!” Ruma pointed at her phone with her freshly manicured fingers—donned with diamond rings. As her fingers tap-danced on the seven day weather chart on the phone, her listener got distracted by the new rock on her pointer finger.

Each night, the sea with the moon croons a lullaby.

Purify my life, like dawn let me rise anew each morn.

On January 1, 2021, Maya Angelou posted the following on her Facebook:

Nabendu Ghosh (1917-2007), an eminent author in Bengali literature pursued many passions. A dancer, an actor, a writer, a screenwriter and a film director, his opus of writing includes thirty novels and fifteen short story collections, that are being translated and continue relevant.

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, as much at home on the Kali Ghat as in Greenwich Village, is best remembered in Bangladesh on account of his poem, September on the Jessore Road. Year One.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) needs no introduction for us. As a polymath, he was the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1913.

And then it rained flowers, then it rained flowers emptying the trees.

The world grows dim and dimmer with feeble eyes. Youth turns into a broken wheelchair; Let’s walk through the desert together, you and I.

Because of the pandemic, this year FOSWAL went for an online conference in collaboration with the Sahitya Akademi. The 4-day long programme titled, “South Asian Online Literary Conference” took place between 15-18 March, 2021.

American children’s book author Beverly Cleary, who responded to a young reader’s plea for realistic characters by bringing rare insight and humor to the lives of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins and the other children who populated her more than 40 books, has died at age 104, publisher HarperCollins said.

During the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971, collaborators led the Pakistani army to Sohagpur village. In one day, they killed 164 men. Fifty-seven

Solayman rolled off his bed in terror. Twisting his body, he dived under the bed stand and lay flat. His whole body was trembling. The freedom fighters must have surrounded his house!

“Did you see the dead bodies over there?” a little wizened old woman bursting out from nowhere asked, fixing her lackluster eyes on them.

It took Dr. Nilima Ibrahim 25 years to publish the narratives of rape victims of 1971 whom she interviewed almost immediately after the war.

Essentially a people’s hero, the most unique “disruptive leader” of Bengal, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-75) solved a number of the “wicked problems” that the West Pakistani feudal-colonial overlords orchestrated and let loose on his nation before its independence in 1971 “by challenging the existing cultural hegemonies that fail to serve communities through concentration of power and the marginalisation of stakeholders” (Ryan, Christian N 2016, 108). Under his charismatic leadership subaltern Bengalis fought their glorious war of liberation, subverted the power structure, and liberated themselves through a nine-month long bloody war which claimed three million lives.

I am a songstress with