Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

The sky so full of stars

I remember reading books that had long descriptions. Some writers do love to describe. JRR Tolkien, for instance, is one of those fantasy gurus who created a world that is beyond our . . . no, not imagination—the conceptions of the elves, ogres, goblins, etc. had already existed inside our small vocabulary boxes before Tolkien's words pierced through our thought bubbles and gave birth to an Orc and a world beyond our, yes, expectation.

If you grew up as a teenager in the 1960s (and in the 1950s, or in the early1970s), and had knowledge and experience of the life led by the upper crust society in then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), going through Niaz Zaman's The Maidens' Club might very well bring about a sense of déjà vu or nostalgia, or both, in you.

As you get older, you start to miss some of the books you have read in the past at different stages of your life. Sometimes what drives this yearning is nostalgia, a memorable moment in the past, or often a reference to a character from a narrative. At least among my friends, how often we refer to Amit Roy, Srikanto, or Constance during conversations, blogs, or on Facebook!

Poets are expected to be “odd characters,” eccentric and reclusive, a riddle and a mystery. They live in a world of their own.

I cannot believe I am sitting next to him, yet again, on a plane. How many times we have done this, how many flights, transfers, holidays, my passport and ticket always with him, even my boarding card; he was the man, the head of the family, he held the travel documents.

Nobel laureate J.M. Czoetzee's “The Childhood of Jesus” came out in 2013 as a cryptic fable exploring innocence, destiny, diaspora, maternal love and the philosophy of the abyss that is human affection. And it's the kind that polarises the reading population.

The 'Past' decides the 'Present' in India. The past is an everyday word, in politics, academics, culture and science in India.

The book Political Parties in Bangladesh Challenges of Democratization written by Professor Dr. Rounaq Jahan and published by the Prothoma Prokashon is indeed a timely endeavor.

Sreesree Chaitannya Charitamrita Avidhan is a lexicon enriched with the words and phrases found in the maxims and discourses propagated by Sree Chaitannya Mahaprabhu (1486-1534), a highly venerated monk and theologian in the history of the Indian Subcontinent.

Whenever Indians, Bangladeshis or Pakistanis come together to discuss literature, past and present, the question of English inevitably arises.

What? You too, my friend? Are you dead in that land you fled to last year, where you chose life for yourself (as you told me at the Coffee House on your last evening in Lahore, a week before you left Pakistan for good), and those two children and the woman, for whom you would have chosen – and once did choose – death with as little hesitation.

Bangladeshi born writer Zia Haider Rahman wins the James Tait Black Literary Prizes, Britain's oldest literary award, for his debut novel In the Light of What We Know.

The history of Bangla literature dates back to the seventh century. The richness of this literature cannot be understood by the world

ENNEKE Arens has undertaken a study of a village called Baniapukur (which she has called Jhagrapur as a pseudonym) in two phases:

Hans Christian Andersen, an immortal author hailing from Denmark, was the ugly duckling of his own story—“so gawky and peculiar”. In the first part of this compassionate bookHans Christian Andersen: The Story of His Life and Works, the author, Professor Dr. Elias Bredsdorff, traces the story of Andersen's extraordinary life and shows how often his tales grew out of his own experience.

By profession Supa Sadia is Public Relations Officer of Stamford University Bangladesh. But her passion is writing. Ekattorer Ekattor

Let me start this book review with three definitions: Ethnography is the study of cultures through close observation, reading and interpretation. Literature has been applied to the imaginative works of poetry and prose. Linguistics is the scientific study of languages, language form, language meaning and language in context.

THIS book was the Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2014. Forever after, there were for them only two sorts of men: the men who were on

NARENDRA Modi is one of the most controversial politicians dominating contemporary India. Never before have we had a leader like him,