The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days

Before my mother bought me a copy of Sarat Shahitya Samagra (2003) one fateful summer back in high school, my exposure to Bangla literature had been limited to Feluda and whatever my textbooks offered.

For me, Amar Chelebela (1991) by Humayun Ahmed would not only be a summer read but also a comfort read, a holiday retreat, a walking tour of a Bangladesh unheard of today, and also a sneak-peak into the daily bustle of a family who redefined literature, science fiction, caricatures, humour and so much more.

During my adolescent years, I devoted a significant portion of my time exploring the idea of ‘summer love’. The cinephile in me went from cheesy Disney Channel flicks like Lizzie McGuire: The Movie (2003) to masterpieces like Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012), while the bibliophile in me devoured Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name (2007) and John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (2006). However, I had to acknowledge all the ways in which these stories didn’t feel relatable to me. Being a Bengali, I’ve grown up reading about the intense romance shared by Devbabu and Paro or watching the pangs of unrequited love in Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (1964). Should I then dismiss the ‘summer fling’ as an irrelevant Western trope? A thing of the sunny Florida beaches and umbrella topped cocktails?

Readers over the last two centuries have generally liked the bright and sparkling world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, whereas Persuasion has often been described as “a departure from the rest of the novels, a turning away from the brilliant and public play of the mind for the deep and private truths of the heart” (Morgan 168).

Unshaven, skeletal men, with hollow, black-ringed eyes, sitting in silent solitude in inner city gutters. Youngsters turned ageless by addiction, their endless need for the next fix drowning out all other desires, commitments or relationships.

Starting July 15, we at the Daily Star Book Club have started reading Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. Read-along rules, discussions, and a list of stores where the novel is available are all up on DS Book’s social media pages.

Islam is practised by 1.6 billion people across the world. But when you grow up in a predominantly Muslim country like Bangladesh, it can often exist as a localised concept in your head.

Anisul Hoque, Translated from the Bengali by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam Do you know, Mr Trump, for deaths of thousands of Americans you’re responsible? You’re liable for the heartrending laments of millions of

Like my long dead father’s face

They said, when it will be the darkest

Splashes of blue in the springtime green,

In the state of seige that we are living in across the world, or, like myself, in an Italy emerging from the pandemic battlefield, a riveting book is our best means of being transported beyond our confined horizons.

After holding polls which closed on July 5, the Daily Star Book Club will be reading Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children starting Wednesday, July 15. Read-along rules, discussions, and a list of stores where the novel is available are all up on DS Books’ social media pages.

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit the knowledge centres of capital Dhaka. Many bookshops are slowly shutting down and publishing houses are struggling to survive. Amidst this crisis, writers and booklovers are seeking state patronage to help them survive.

I came across Kristy’s Great Idea, the first book of Ann M Martin’s The Baby-Sitters Club legacy, at 16, in my school’s library in Qatar.

There are two things that I believe are enough to make me lose my sanity during times of unrest—scrolling down my Facebook feed and the afternoon TV news. The characters in Megha Majumdar’s new novel, A Burning (2020), become unavoidably embroiled in both.

“Mamaa, mama re! Would you like to munch on my toast and have a sip from my sugary milk tea?”

The twentieth century’s interactions with the popular revolutions, capitalist advent, authoritarianism, World Wars, repressive state-system paves the way for a frowning skepticism about the Enlightenment metanarrative and nuances the global literary firmament with dystopian motif.

On an unnamed island, the townspeople awaken to an unsettling feeling. Something has disappeared from their memories and dropped into a bottomless pit, joining perfume, hats, and birds, to name a few. From today, the townspeople are incapable of remembering anything about this ‘something’.

He’s mysterious. He’s charming. He’s strong, skilled and agile. He makes you think of James Bond, or perhaps Jason Bourne.