Book Reviews

BRUSH STROKES OF HISTORY AND A PERSONAL BRUSH

This is an aberrant situation…well, read on. Alam, in his Itihasher...
Islam: A Short History

History by definition denotes all the events that happened in the...
A Tale of Rohingya: A Take on Dislocation and Displacement

The life of refugee people has always been difficult, and in the...

Transatlantic Transitions: Back to Global Future?

The term 'transatlantic relations' has emerged as a...
Djinn City: Myth and Mystery in Dhaka's Underbelly

No need for a movie tonight! Grab yourself a cup of steaming hot...
Through the Eyes of Mrs. Funnybones

Balancing beautifully between her panache and wit, Twinkle Khanna a...

THE ETERNAL BARD

Just the other day I was watching over CNN the celebrated...
A Review of The Sunset Club

'Boorha Binch' is the term used by walkers and wanderers...
In an Old Metropolis Once We Lived

When I put my first step

Nirbachito Galpa: A Reflection of Middle-Class Lifestyle

Abul Hayat is a renowned Bangladeshi actor. Starting with Oedipus...
The Uprising of 1857

There is perhaps no event in the long history of the British empire...
Pestilential Scourge - The Plague

Published in 1947, the background of Albert Camus' The Plague...

The Best Asian Short Stories: Stories from a Changing Continent

A son worries whether his mother, who is travelling alone, will be...
Art Against Genocide: A Testament of Time

As much as the ongoing Rohingya crisis is being extensively covered...
Professor Nurul Islam’s Odyssey

This book is the story of Professor Nurul Islam, arguably...

Once Upon a Night

Surabala and I went to school together, played husband and wife,...
Going to Hatiya Island

At first sight of our island, I confess
Where Reality Meets Fiction

“All our lives, we are never in a single moment at any time”- said...

ECLECTIC ESSAYS

Muhammad Zamir is a prolific writer, notably for the national...
Crescent: A Review

Diana Abu-Jaber, a Jordanian-American writer based in U.S.,...
Anne -The Hopeless Dreamer

If you are a fan of Little Women or What Katy Did series, Anne of...

Social “Cannibalism” and the Edible Women

The Edible Woman (1969) is the Canadian author Margaret Atwood'...
Fundamentalism in Bangladesh: A Review

Prof. Abul Barkat, who is known as “people's economist,” has...
Jibanananda Das: Baitarani

I'm not sure when I rose from the grave of death—

A Review of His Chariot of Life: Liberation War, Politics and Sojourn in Jail

After Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury was slapped an uncertain prison term at the end of what he describes as a 'kangaroo trial,' on 18
Pahela Baishakh in Carbondale

Celebrating Pahela Baishakh is only getting more and more colorful. It is no less than a carnival these days. As far I can remember,
A GREEN DOVE IN SILENCE: FORTY PROSE POEMS IN TRANSLATION

There is a feel good factor about Gauranga Mohanta's collection of prose poems A Green Dove in Silence. A neat jacket, crispy pages,
Women at War: Shongramee Naree 52 and 71

Since the Liberation War in 1971 the readers in Bangladesh have seen many narratives on 1971 and 1952. In most of these, the central
REMINISCING HALCYON ELITE DAYS

Days with Dinko and other Memories, written by Monica Chanda, and edited and published by her daughter Malavika Karlekar, is a
BLRC Observes World Poetry Day

“Poetry should be free from Royalist Canada's university elites' hierarchy to come down to mass people” - was the resounding declaration
I Can Choose to Go, But Why Should I?

Perhaps, it is better to turn around.
Snippets

Her: Seen yesterday's sunset?
Un-Romanticising the Colonial History

Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India (2017, Hurst: London, 296 pages) does not tell any untold story. The
Colonial History Disrupted: Interpreting the Bottom Line

As Josh Katz says in a recent New York Times article, there has been a 540% increase in Fentanyl-related deaths over the past three
My Absence

In the sultry air of March yawns my absence.
BRAVERY HAS NO AGE RESTRICTION

With the rise of fake Freedom Fighter certificates, it is nearly impossible not to be a cynic when one hears about early teen or eleven
The Tide of Nationalism in the Rise of Bangladesh

Nationalism is one of the most powerful political ideologies of the world and its wave still vibrates through the Indian subcontinent
LOVE THE ENDURING KIND

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."
A G Stock's Memoirs of Dacca University

“The book is a memoir, not a history, and makes no claim to a historian's detachment or research.” With this statement, A G Stock
They Also Were Involved

The subtitle of the book proposes it all: fourteen writers reminisce about their own, or their dear ones' experiences immediately prior to, or during, or at the end of the Liberation War of Bangladesh.
Verses on love and agony: Mashuk Chowdhury's Swarger Replica

Two years earlier I had reviewed one of Mashuk Chowdhury's poetry collections Nodir Nam Dusshomoy for The Daily Star Book Review
Making Revolution Strange/r: Viktor Shklovsky and the Bolsheviks

1978. When Serena Vitale, an Italian writer and translator, managed her third meeting with Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984), the
Going Beyond Gossip and Name-Dropping?

“Biographies do walk the 'precarious high wire between fiction and non-fiction” (Claire Battershill in “No One Wants Biography”).
Revisiting Banaphool's Stories

No life can simply be subsumed under a single category- nor is it possible to come up with a single term to define life's fluxes or
ALL WORK AND SOME PLAY AT RADA

Rada was a lot of hard work interspersed with a good deal of pressure releasers. Talk about the right doses of work and play—RADA
Two Poems by Maruful Islam

The last traces of water evaporate from the beak of the wind
Through Time and Tide

Boats: A Treasure of Bangladesh acts as a paean to the ancient, yet now sadly dying craft of naval carpentry in Bangladesh. Its roots in the region go back far enough for Ibn Battuta...
Of Jean Paul Sartre and Imposture

In October 1964, Jean Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, a French philosopher and novelist, was declared winner of the Nobel Prize for literature for that year.
Myanmar's Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim “Other”

As Bangladesh continues to grapple with the massive influx of Rohingya refugees, an unprecedented spotlight has been shone on the
Rediscovering Origin

These two questions happen to be at the heart of human knowledge and rationality, and the focal point of Dan Brown's ground-
SKETCHES ON A WIDE CAMPUS

This book's subtitle, Sketches from my Life gestures helpfully at the book's content for it is about the full and colorful life lived by its
Efflorescence of South Asian Sci Fi?

I have long been a reader of science fiction. Not just for entertainment, but also for insights useful for my research and teaching.
Church Bells and Darjeeling Tea

The title of the book entices the reader. We all love Darjeeling tea, but why 'Church bells?' Zeena Chowdhury's experience of
Is It Truth or Dare?

Those familiar with Nadia Kabir Barb's column Straight Talk in The Daily Star will be pleased with her short fiction debut Truth or Dare.