Essay / Celebrating literary minds: Reflections on editing festschrifts
26 September 2026
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Essay
“Festschrift” is a German word coined in the 19th century by combining ”fest”, meaning “celebration” or “festival,” with ”schrift”, meaning “writing” or “script,” to signify “celebration writing” or “festival publication.”
Creative Nonfiction / Birthdays to remember
26 September 2026
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Creative non-fiction
BOOK REVIEW: FICTION / Lost in translation, looking for home
25 September 2026
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Books & Literature
INTERVIEW / In conversation with Lucky Karim: The story behind ‘Born Lucky’
25 September 2026
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Books & Literature
Inside Asia’s Hidden Heritage Treasures: ANN releases new e-book on continent’s shared culture
24 September 2026
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Books & Literature
News Report / NSU Writing Center offers certificate course for professionals
21 September 2026
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News
Fiction / The winter ballot
19 September 2026
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Fiction
Poetry / Four poems on healing
19 September 2026
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Poetry
Poetry / Sacred sorrows
19 September 2026
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Poetry
Literary Curtains / Patriarchy inversed: Reimagining Rokeya’s Ladyland in 2026
“Ladyland is not perfect,” remarks Sultana, one of the protagonists in the much awaited play, “Project Ladyland 2026”. Produced by HerStory Foundation in collaboration with the British Council and Women of the World Foundation, the play was greeted by a full house this weekend. Staged at the Bangladesh Mohila Samiti theatre, the performance made a splash on Friday, August 14.
Event Report / Kobitabela: a soulful afternoon
9 September 2026
Event Report / Special Discussion Marks Abul Hasnat’s Birth Anniversary: ‘Nabiner Shahittya: Shwapna O Shwapnabhongo’
19 July 2026
A special literary discussion titled ‘Nabiner Shahittya: Shwapna O Shwapnabhongo’ was held on Friday, July 17, 2026, at 5:00 P.M. on the third floor of Bengal Shilpalay in Dhanmondi, Dhaka. This discussion was organised to commemorate the birth anniversary of distinguished poet, essayist, and literary editor Abul Hasnat. The event brought together prominent writers and editors to discuss the literary pursuits of emerging authors and the pivotal role editors play in nurturing new literary voices.
News Report / Jamir Nazir wins 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize following AI review
3 July 2026
Set in rural Trinidad, “The Serpent in the Grove” explores themes of betrayal, survival and the resilience of a woman's will.
The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days
18 June 2026
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The Shelf
You know when the sky trades its brightness for a low, silver hue, and you wrap your fingers tightly around your tea, seeking that small, steady pulse of warmth. This is the essence of healing fiction. Often rooted in the Japanese concept of iyashikei, these stories focus on the quiet spirit through small, everyday moments. You may have already heard of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or We’ll Prescribe You a Cat. While those popular favourites have opened a door for many, there are a few other tales worth the read.
Reflections / In the age of AI allegations
13 June 2026
Fiction / Body Selim
18 April 2026
Has young adult fantasy become rote as a genre?
Everyone had them on their bookshelves. Everyone read them and fawned over them. Online stores were getting creative with the contents of these young-adult fantasy books, coming up with themed candles, beautifully designed bookmarks, and exclusive sticker packs. It was almost as though the genre had developed a cult following of its own.
13 August 2020
The road not taken, in books
One day many years ago, discovering my cousin’s tattered copy of a Give Yourself Goosebumps book completely changed my ideas about what books could be.
12 August 2020
The fires of Partition in East Bengal
Three years before Maloy Krishna Dhar’s death, his memoir, Train to India: Memories of Another Bengal (Penguin India, 2009), came out. Born in a sleepy village of Kamalpur in the Bhairab-Mymensingh region next to Meghna and Brahmaputra, Dhar had an illustrious career as a teacher, journalist, intelligence officer, and writer.
12 August 2020
To stitch a tapestry of trauma: Material memories of the Partition of India
A good book stays with a reader long after they’ve read the last word and placed it back on the shelf. It leaves an impression on the mind, whether because the action was exhilarating, the characters raw and real, or because reading it felt like coming back to a home you never knew you had.
12 August 2020
For a Pinch of Life
A damp siren screamed at the rushing wind. Black and thick smoky clouds slowly clotted in a grey sky, as if preparing for some kind of a ritual.
7 August 2020
Politicking with Pain
I can’t sleep anymore
Piano. Storms. White noise
Nothing works.
7 August 2020
Diary of Pandemic Days
It’s already been several months since we’ve been hurled into the vortex of the coronavirus. The virus lives among us, silent and invisible.
7 August 2020
Beyond the pages of Anne Frank’s diary
On the first day of this month, 76 years ago, Anne Frank wrote her last diary entry. Three days later, on August 4, the building she was hiding in with her family and four family friends was raided by the Gestapos.
7 August 2020
A book’s plea for a better internet
“Happily, the Web is so huge that there’s no way any one company can dominate it,” wrote Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1999.
5 August 2020
'Shirley' crystallises Shirley Jackson’s contested legacy
Shirley (2020), directed by Josephine Decker and adapted by Sarah Gubbins from the 2014 eponymous novel by Susan Scarf Merrell, interweaves fact and fiction into an imagined narrative about the time when author Shirley Jackson was writing her second novel Hangsaman (1951).
5 August 2020
Earth calls the soul in ‘Inner State’
“A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.”
5 August 2020
Conversations from the Daily Star Book Club
On the Daily Star Book Club last week, we asked members how they organise and look after their book collections at home. Here is what we learned:
29 July 2020
'Once Upon An Eid': A rare glimpse into Muslim homes
Diversity can seem jaded when it is employed for the sake of appearing “woke”.
29 July 2020
Technicolour Mughals: Ira Mukhoty brings Akbar to life
Humans are a storytelling species. Yet history, which is but the stories of yesteryears, is taught like a chain of facts and dates.
29 July 2020
Himadri Lahiri’s Diaspora Theory and Transnationalism
The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader (2017) co-edited by Klaus Stierstorfer and Janet Wilson made significant observations about the increase in global movement of people, capital, products, cultures and ideologies;
24 July 2020
in a sleepless trance
I hold stares - I sing to the moon
Rigid, motionless - senseless woes
24 July 2020
The Retirement
The human race is doing quite well. There was a possibility of a climate catastrophe in the early 21st century but they came to their senses soon enough and managed to deal with it by 2050.
24 July 2020
The Bengali summer read
Come June, the season of light reading arrives with the promise of filling lazy afternoons freed from school work or, for adults who can’t manage a vacation, escape in the form of relaxing books.
22 July 2020
Rizia Rahman, an antidote to apathy
For lovers of short story collections, Rizia Rahman’s Char Doshoker Golpo (2011) can be great company on lazy afternoons. Rahman is undoubtedly among the finest writers of literature in Bangladesh, yet her craft goes unnoticed by many from the younger generations today.
22 July 2020
Bibhutibhushan, an unlikely adventurer
For anyone sitting through heat-stricken afternoons on forever-long summer days, reprieve can come in the form of escape into a fictional world, and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay is a master at offering it.
22 July 2020
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