fiction

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 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?

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.

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 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

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 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.

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 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. 

FICTION / Writer’s block

Asif stares at the blank page, his chest tightening with that all-too-familiar dread.

BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / 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.

The thrills of Rakib Hasan

Rakib Hasan took Western adventure tales and breathed into them a Bangladeshi heart.

FICTION / 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

October 29, 2025
October 29, 2025

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.

October 23, 2025
October 23, 2025

The thrills of Rakib Hasan

Rakib Hasan took Western adventure tales and breathed into them a Bangladeshi heart.

September 27, 2025
September 27, 2025

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

September 25, 2025
September 25, 2025

The mirror between us

And for the Oldest, the mirror wounds as well.

September 11, 2025
September 11, 2025

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.

September 6, 2025
September 6, 2025

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

September 4, 2025
September 4, 2025

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.

September 4, 2025
September 4, 2025

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.

August 29, 2025
August 29, 2025

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.

August 16, 2025
August 16, 2025

A gilded cage

The automated blinds of the penthouse in Gulshan, an upscale area, rise with a soft hum, revealing a picture-perfect Dhaka morning.