If the girls we read about could speak today, their voices would be both sharp and unflinching.
To understand the deep-seated relevance of this modern debate, we must embark on a journey into the heart of Sarat Chandra’s literature, where these battles first found voice.
Gupta shares her insights on reclaiming forgotten histories, reimagining myths, and connecting ancient narratives to contemporary ecological and social concerns.
I first heard Taylor Swift’s song “The Fate of Ophelia” on the radio during a road trip to New Hampshire the day after it was released on October 3.
Buried beneath masses of mangled bodies of countless innocents slowly pulled from the shrapnel and debris, their remaining flesh torn in the extraction, lies a reflection of the world’s inhumanity.
For the Class of ’69 at Dhaka University, that bond was embodied in one man—Syed Mayeenul Huq. He wasn’t just a friend; he was the quiet, steady centre that held their entire constellation together.
“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.
If every leaf that falls is a memory you’ve forgotten, then let my ink become rain— so you might remember how it felt to grow with me.
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.
What is motherhood, exactly? While biomedical sciences tell us one answer, the undeniable social experiences we gather throughout our lives say otherwise. What happens when technologies such as IVF (In-Vitro Fertilisation) allow women to surpass natural barriers to become mothers? Does it make women free from the constraints of motherhood, or does it reinforce them?
The idea of outsourcing the selection of poems to a fellow poet-publisher Dustin Pickering, lends the already published poems of Kiriti Sengupta another round of robust readership.
The author of this book is the protagonist of a charming inter-cultural romance. He is one of fewer than a handful of living Westerners who fortuitously fell in love with Bengali literature and made a distinguished career of teaching it—at the University of Chicago in his case.
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
We are living in the advancing era, mended meticulously with dreams and expectations. It is the era of new norms. And yet, a woman asking for the basic human rights will be scrutinised for standing up for herself.
A stunning meditation on some of the concepts that haunt our present moment—humanity and moralism, Zionism today, democracy and imperialism and perhaps most significantly, the question that lies at the very heart of the human condition: what does it mean
Every year, on June 20, World Refugee Day calls on us to remember and hold in our hearts the millions displaced by conflict, persecution, and political upheaval around the world.
These paternal characters are not easy to love, nor can they love faultlessly themselves. Yet it is precisely this contradiction—their awkward tenderness, silent failures, and undeniable devotion—that makes them so achingly human
These two things—the river and the train—continue to haunt and fascinate me.
Translation is risk, and poetry is the highest form of risk
The violence is domestic, institutional, and often unnamed—carried out by people who look nothing like monsters.
These stories prove one thing: art theft never goes out of fashion.
It’s very likely that Substack will become the “drawing room” of intellectuals and creative elites.
The refusal to write beautifully is often justified in the name of neutrality, of detachment, of discipline.
Where Babitz is like the intimidating older sister you could only listen to in an obsessed quiet, Ephron feels more like a friend translating my internal monologue into the perfect words.
Asif stares at the blank page, his chest tightening with that all-too-familiar dread.
“If my father had any unpaid debt to anyone, please contact me or my younger brother Hamza,” Omar said to the congregation at the funeral, trying to sound soft and loud at the same time, “And if my father ever hurt any of you unintentionally, please forgive his soul and pray for him. Thank you.”
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
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
Trigger warning: self harm, sexual and physical abuse “For a hundred million, Omar, are you ready?” said the host, with his everlasting grin.
The automated blinds of the penthouse in Gulshan, an upscale area, rise with a soft hum, revealing a picture-perfect Dhaka morning.
Every night, a market forms near the mill gate. When it’s time for that market to close, Fulbanu stands on the high bank of the pond, waiting for her husband’s return.
The unnamed You can get lost trying to get back to the exit at the Vatican Museum.
Tea breaks, the perks of a bike ride.
"The ghosts still sing in Shantinagar" is one of the winning entries for our Halloween themed writing contest, 'Spooktober: Bhooter Adda'
There is always a subtle tension when a story migrates across cultures. Some narratives travel with the lightness of wind, reshaping themselves almost effortlessly inside new imaginations, while others arrive heavy with the weight of the worlds that first produced them.
Shell-shocked, I talked to the office staff. They all looked sad, a little perplexed too, perhaps seeing my very unusual, distressed face.
My readings of the two books—the subject of this write-up—happened to be on two momentous occasions, set two decades apart in utterly contrasting ways.
Kumu was born five years after Peara. Five long, whisper-filled years. Peara, the third child, the first son, the long-awaited heir who arrived with the weight of joy and expectation.
In The Message, Coates details several experiences from his travels to Senegal and Palestine, his correspondences with a teacher in South Carolina fighting against a school board’s push to ban books with topics deemed controversial, and his personal takeaways from these events.
Last year's prize was won by British writer Samantha Harvey for her short novel, "Orbital"
‘Shattered Lands’ journeys through fractured histories of 1947 Partition that made modern South Asia
Translation is a bridge to connect different cultures and their literatures. It’s a medium to reflect the gems of a country’s literature around the globe.
Accompanying the Booker Prize long-listed novels of this year, Clare Adam’s <I>Love Forms </I>(Faber, 2025) offers an enthralling tale of Dawn, the protagonist of the novel, who is in a lifelong search for her long-lost illegitimate daughter. Although Dawn continues her strides in life from gett
Ogilvie reveals that the method of its construction: a global appeal for words from any and all English speakers, ensured that the language of the periphery flooded the metropole.
