As I have grown older, my mind is calmer but it’s a void now, empty of any voice.

It is a story of discomfort. Of calm, ruthless violence. A drag-your-hands-down-to-uncover-your-eyes gaze at the oblivion we practice not only during Eid holidays, but on any regular day in Bangladesh. 

The day had not yet begun, the security light not yet put out.

Why did she whisper? She isn’t the whispering kind. Nargis can’t remember the last time she heard Rakib Bhai’s wife whisper.

Every time it rains, I am reminded of the story that started but never really had a proper ending.

A hundred years ago humans welcomed a new species of their kind, Homo debilis-sagax.

Throughout my not so long life, I’ve always wanted to be called beautiful.

Twenty-eight years ago, on an overcast day, an astrologer, sitting at the porch of our ramshackle house, had predicted that my mother would never give birth to a male child.

If there is one thing that worries me a little, it is that the strong trend for themes of sexual violence that began to appear during lockdown, continues to be favoured by a significant number of our domestic writers.

“My story concerns the lost souls of a metropolis”, the author tells The Daily Star, “those magnificent beasts that cannot find their places in a growing, sprawling cityscape.” 

Tongues and Bellies, published by Linen Press (2021), is described by its blurb as an anthology where “sensual and surprising stories play a tantalising game of hide and seek with lies and truth”.

Two years ago, I read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Christmas Tree and the Wedding”(1848), and even though I don’t celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense,

So many words have been used to describe this nation in the last 50 years. Started from a bottomless basket, and along the way we’ve been called resilient, passionate, corrupt, greedy, full of warmth.

Hasan Azizul Haque, who passed away on November 15, 2021, began his career with the publication of the short story “Shokun” in 1960, and since its publication till today, it has shocked and stupefied most readers who have found their way to this unique and masterfully crafted story—reading it is not an experience one forgets easily, or ever.

The version of Bangladesh we received in Babu Bangladesh (2019) was astonishing.

Anyone familiar with Toni Morrison’s work would know about the gutting picture of slavery and racism that she painted with her stories.

Typical of any Samanta Schweblin story from her International Booker-longlisted collection, Mouthful of Birds (OneWorld, 2019), a sense of anxiety is strongly perceptible here, especially through the characters Fi and Pe. One grows afraid of them as they start showing both lovingly caring and Big Brother-like tendencies. What heightens the ominous halo surrounding these two is the hostages’ inability to translate their emotions; why would someone who provides for you not give you a way out?

The prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize competition returns for its 11th iteration, opening its doors for short story submissions from September 1 to November 1, 2021 (11:59pm in any time zone). 

Fifty years old this year, the country represented in 'Golden: Bangladesh at 50' (UPL, 2021) is haunted, still, by all that it has survived, and it takes a look at all that it continues to breed, ranging from the festering to the hopeful. And so it follows that the collection feels wonderfully young, even as it comprises some of the most experienced and eminent of our writers, from Neeman Sobhan and Lubna Marium to Arif Anwar, Shazia Omar, Nadeem Zaman, Sabrina Ahmad, and many more.

Mr Harun-Ar-Rashid is a renowned author, economist, researcher and columnist. Despite being a graduate of Accounting he has written on a wide array of social & political causes/issues. The author has published 40 different books so far as a social novel, research papers, stories and so on.