Obayed Haq’s Bangla novel, Arkathi, is almost a bildungsroman tale filled with adventure and self-reflection. In true bildungsroman fashion, where the protagonist progresses into adulthood with room for growth and change, a bulk of Haq’s novel talks about the spiritual journey that an orphan, Naren, takes through a forest in order to mature, and comes out on the other side to realise a community’s deep, hidden truth.

Someone in a chat group somewhere called Sally Rooney the ‘Taylor Swift’ of the literary world, and now I cannot unsee it.

In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime. 

I was a Twilight girl.

Being an ardent admirer of K-pop culture, I wonder why I was hitherto unaware of this gem of a book, One Left by Kim Soom, and the excruciatingly painful truth it delineates.

‘Shabnam’ is a dewdrop in Persian. Shabnam (1960) is the name of Syed Mujtaba Ali’s passionate love story that stretches beyond the history of nearly a century ago.

Everett’s breezy, fast-moving retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) is about putting in some due respect.

Review of ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida’ (Sort of Books, 2022) by Shehan Karunatilaka

Happy Hour greeted me like a warm hug. This is definitely one of the sweetest books I’ve read this year, and possibly one of the sweetest books I will ever read.

Anasru Ishwar written by Kazi Labonno is an impressive work of fiction, shedding light on the deepest gloom pervading the remotest corner of society.

Dear readers. I want you to do something with me. Take three long breaths—as deep as you can. Now hold it for two minutes! How long did you hold? I only survived one minute and 23 seconds. And I’m used to spending time in the water.

While reading it, one might feel that they are reading a mother’s confessions while she takes care of her son.

The eight girls in Headshot clearly hope to escape the chaos of their lives in the ring.

The 309-page-long dystopian novel is an oppressive account of Eilish who tries to keep her family from falling apart as everything around her crumbles.

'The Hippo Girl and Other Stories' holds up a mirror to a society that judges and ridicules those that do not adhere to its shortsighted vision of a homogenised culture.

“An exceptional novel that makes gender disappear to build unconventional love and friendship”

The literary world was shaken on August 12, 2022, when the news of Salman Rushdie being stabbed on stage in upstate New York started to pour in. Ironically, he was all set to talk about his involvement in a project to create a refuge in the USA for those writers who are not safe in their country.

The Three-Body Problem is the first book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past (2006) trilogy by Cixin Liu, a renowned Chinese author.

I recently had the sublime experience of watching the recent adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune (Chilton Books, 1965), a 2021 and 2023 two-part movie series directed by the passionate Denis Villeneuve. It is, in my mind, a cinematic triumph, and I am thrilled to witness the surge interest these movies have driven for Herbert’s science fiction book series of the same name.

Anisul Hoque’s Kokhono Amar Maa-ke is the story of appalling sacrifices made by a mother and her unwavering determination to secure a bright future for her children.