The mosque committee was quite displeased with Rashed, their young muezzin.

Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.

The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower

I’m going through a heartbreak

Shahaduz Zaman stands out prominently as a significant figure in the contemporary Bangla literary landscape, utilising intertextuality throughout his works, and   infusing various texts and genres into his narratives.

Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.

I'm tired of living with this nagging thought that we'll cross paths someday, /You and I

At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.

They say the hills have eyes Iridescent, all knowing, and deathlike.

Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.

When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.

You have made ice out of my heart;/ we were once nothing–you brutalise me

“Stop mocking me, Atif! I am telling you there is something here.” 

Words were never my greatest strength/ But the arsonist's child will read them

Be a tree Get wet in sorrow’s shower and you’ll recover. From envy’s scorching sun gather strength

Smoother violence fills our hearts like charming splinters. The irony is I am the first of my women

The voices–the wails that had called me here–were emanating from these very graves. 

I've lived as her; / I've known my mother’s plight.

How do you think I feel every time I find you hovering over the door to my classroom? Like when you’re the only passenger riding up a lift, and then it suddenly stops.

The only way they chose to do this was probably written or imprinted in our genes–a wild frenzy of carnal expressions filled their faces.