Sarah Anjum Bari

Last month, in an auditorium of poets, novelists, essayists, artists, I sat in a haunting silence after Palestinian author Sarah Aziza ended a lecture about writing from the ruins.

Beginning to read Fine Gråbøl’s What Kingdom, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitkin, is like sitting in a silent room, alone, and a voice begins to speak as though from beside you.

The walls of Dhaka city represent the volume and chaos of thousands of people jostling for ever-shrinking space.

It's true, I feel differently about books that I previously disliked or enjoyed reading and books that I want as a physical presence in my life

It’s hard not to recall our many conversations about literature as I try to summarise Shah Tazrian Ashrafi’s debut collection of short stories. They were always short discussions, opening and closing off in spurts, as happens over text. Exclamations over a new essay collection by Zadie Smith, or a new novel by Isabel Allende.

In the foreword, I wanted to capture how I, as a child, grew up listening to different stories: ghost stories, mythical stories from both Sanatana and Islamic religious scriptures, and fairy tales from 'Thakurmar Jhuli', compiled by Dakkhinaranjan Mitra Majumdar. It was a time when there were no boundaries for my imagination.

Like many veterans, I joined a creative writing MFA program because I wanted to evolve as a writer.

Here was a woman who was but a dot amidst the throngs of people who watched the Bosphorus Bridge being opened in October 1973, as fireworks erupted over a Turkey that now seamed Asia to Europe.