The proof that Dr Niaz Zaman is an amazing writer lies in the fact that she knows exactly how to wound you with four words: “You are too late.”
Revisiting ‘The Long Walk’ (Signet Books, 1979) by Stephen King on his 78th birthday
Elif Shafak has adroitly balanced the story between Peri’s suffering as a woman and religion’s role in mending our relationships and lives.
“Art is empathy,” Fredrik Backman writes. So is friendship—the kind that stays with you long after the summer ends.The kind you find when you’re 14 and everything is breaking and beginning at once. The kind of friendship that becomes a map back to yourself, years later, when you’re lost in grief, guilt, or even just the quiet ache of growing up. Fredrik Backman’s My Friends is a love letter to those friendships.
In Lakshmi’s Secret Diary, Ari Gautier crafts a dazzling, multi-layered narrative that is as whimsical as it is profound.
These stories subtly highlight how even within patriarchal structures, men, too, are shaped, sometimes twisted by the systems they benefit from.
Storytelling is not easy, especially when a few words portray a character with depth and just enough strokes to etch the social milieu for certain classes and creeds and the outcomes of political ideologies in post-independent Bangladesh.
Ravindra's prose is brisk, smooth, and detailed, with numerous stories from traditional Nepali and Hindu folklore chipped in, adding layers as the story unfolds.
How does one write about history? Certainly, there is the straight-forward, head-on approach, where a historical period is confronted directly by populating it with historical/fictional characters and portraying the times through their eyes.
Begum Rokeya was once described as a “Spider Mother” (makar-mata or makarsha janani) in her biographical account but there is nothing sinister in this metaphor. The image of the spider here symbolises the quiet, patient, and selfless labour of an educator, caring for children who were not her own. Shamsunnahar Mahmud, her close co-worker, wrote: “Day after day in this way, with the blood of her own breast, Spider Mother began to revive hundreds of baby spiders into new life.”
There are any number of ways one can approach Rahat Ara Begum’s collection of short stories, 'Lost Tales from a Bygone Era: An Anthology of Translation of Urdu Stories', assembled, contextualised, and published in this book by her loving grandchildren and their siblings
‘Fit for the Gods: Greek Mythology Reimagined’ (Vintage, 2023), edited by Jenn Northington and S. Zainab Williams, is a collection of classic myths with a twist
Aparna Upadhyaya Sanyal’s 'Instruments of Torture' is a powerful literary collection that delves into the psychological and societal torments individuals endure, particularly focusing on themes of beauty standards and the representation of women. Each story in the collection is named after a medieval torture device, serving as a metaphor for the emotional and societal pressures faced by the characters.
Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captivated pop culture with its bold take on tyranny, sacrifice, and resistance, spanning Katniss Everdeen’s blazing defiance in The Hunger Games (2008) to her final stand in Mockingjay (2010) against Coriolanus Snow’s cold cruelty.
Beyond the celebration of Eid, this book also explores themes of love, loss, and the grief of spending a special occasion without a loved one.
Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls, its English translation published last November, plunges the reader into a kind of metaphysical vertigo that never reaches a concluding synthesis.
Harvard killed my love for reading. When my advisor took me out for a celebratory dinner an hour after my doctoral defense in July 2012, I struggled to read the menu.
In Good Material, Dolly Alderton uses her sharp humor and keen observations to explore the challenges of adulthood.
