fiction

A trim reckoning

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.
17 January 2026, 00:00 AM

The manifesto of laughter

The afternoon sun presses down on Dhaka like a heavy hand. Heat rises from the asphalt in shimmers; buses wheeze as though gasping for breath. Rickshaw bells jangle against each other in the thick, damp air.
31 December 2025, 18:00 PM

A tangled knot of wealth and sin

The novella is written from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, who represents sloth. He is a nostalgic and unambitious man. Legally and on paper, he is the director of their family business, Sona Masala, although he does no actual work.
22 December 2025, 11:07 AM

Aquatic deity

Shimulia was a remote village. A girl from this village was named Madhurilata. The origin of this name remained a mystery to most of the villagers. Nevertheless, they affectionately referred to her as Madhu, which meant honey.
12 December 2025, 19:23 PM

The colour of red hibiscus

The Polish nurse at the rehabilitation center asks her to decide. Does Neela want to have an abortion or wait for the delivery? “You’re almost seven months,” the nurse says in English. “An abortion would be very risky.”
12 December 2025, 19:23 PM

All’s almost well

All’s Well circles one maddening question: what does pain need to look like before someone finally believes you? And how do you stop before it gets too discomfortable?
3 December 2025, 12:44 PM

Where they all disappear

All he hears is the weight of his right-hand trembling as the frantic sound of beak against wooden board grows louder and louder.
28 November 2025, 10:00 AM

Between home and elsewhere

Some books explain immigrant life through nostalgia. Others through big dramatic events. Sharbari Ahmed does neither in <I>The Strangest of Fruit</I>. Her stories focus on the quieter things like small humiliations, awkward encounters, the private wounds people carry, and the memories they don’t
26 November 2025, 18:00 PM

An incident amidst nightly escapades

“Graveyard Shift” is a highly anticipated work by M L Rio, following her success with If We Were Villains (Flatiron Books), released in 2017. Like its predecessor, the novella “Graveyard Shift” also stays in the realm of dark academia; however, the similarities between the two books end there.
18 November 2025, 12:13 PM

Growing up ordinary in a toxic work culture

Focusing on themes of systemic injustice, and resistance, Counterattack at Thirty is a captivating and timely read—perfect for anyone interested in personal narratives infused with keen social commentary. 
14 November 2025, 09:55 AM

Writer’s block

Asif stares at the blank page, his chest tightening with that all-too-familiar dread.
31 October 2025, 19:37 PM

Prelude, Puzzle and Premonition

Uketsu, the anonymous writer and a macabre enthusiast, fictionalizes himself as the protagonist in the novel Strange Houses, where he is introduced to a series of unpleasant experiences in several houses through his acquaintances.
29 October 2025, 12:12 PM

The thrills of Rakib Hasan

Rakib Hasan took Western adventure tales and breathed into them a Bangladeshi heart.
23 October 2025, 08:44 AM

The u-turn

Is he eyeing me?.That young man with the receding hairline, flipping through a paperback on a discount table. No, revise that. He is not so young really, as my second take reconsiders. A freshness in his eyes made him look more youthful. If not for his thinning scalp, that little paunch un
26 September 2025, 19:02 PM

The mirror between us

And for the Oldest, the mirror wounds as well.
25 September 2025, 09:49 AM

Abandon hope, all ye who enter grad school

If Dante Alighieri were a frustrated PhD student with a caffeine addiction and a strong disdain for university bureaucracy, he might have created Katabasis, as R.F. Kuang did.
10 September 2025, 18:00 PM

The dawn’s return

Long, long ago, when the world was younger, wiser, softer, when the animals were braver and the people were gentler, when art lived and music sailed, and the skies were a true, honest blue, there lived a man who loved a woman, and they lived in a little house they loved very much. How they met o
5 September 2025, 18:58 PM

The imperfect art of leaving

In a recent conversation I had with a well-regarded photographer about his longitudinal study on a subject, he talked about Sufism and the structure of the raagas in classical music where a single refrain being repeated was actually an inward search for deeper meaning.
3 September 2025, 18:01 PM

Bridging divides: Aruna Chakravarti’s journey through Bengal’s hidden narratives

"You have done an excellent job. People who know English tell me that your translations are better than the originals," said the late Sunil Gangopadhyay to Aruna Chakravarti on her translation of his writings.
3 September 2025, 18:01 PM

Children of Rain

Shirin could barely walk after the accident; her lungs gave in anytime she took more than twenty steps. In between, bed rest and medications exhausted her body but never her spirit. She was someone who could be described as being made of liquid sun – warm, radiant, bright – anything and everything people thought a differently-abled person couldn't be.
29 August 2025, 12:00 PM