CREATIVE NONFICTION / Our Eids and Puja in Azimpur

30 May 2026, 00:00 AM Books & Literature
In 1970s Azimpur, the two Eids and Durga Puja were the punctuation marks of our year—days when stairwells, verandas, and a single playground turned many flats into one home.

Interview / Writing what silence carries: Mohua Chinappa on memory, pain, and inheritance

Thorns in My Quilt (Rupa Publications India, 2024) unfolds through address rather than disclosure. Written as a series of letters to her father, Mohua Chinappa’s memoir traces memory not as a sequence of events, but as an emotional inheritance shaped by silence, expectation, and the subtle negotiations that govern family life.
News Report / From the ashes: Gaza’s first grassroots library rises amid genocide
12 April 2026, 21:43 PM
Two Palestinian writers, Omar Hamad and Ibrahim Massri, have been working since late 2025 to build a library in Gaza during the ongoing genocide. The Phoenix Library is located in the heart of Gaza City and, per a post from the library’s Twitter/X account, is fast approaching its official opening date despite the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine still being subject to Israeli apartheid violence.
NEWS REPORT / Arundhati Roy’s Mother Mary Comes to Me secures 2026 NBCC Award, continues global recognition
28 March 2026, 17:07 PM
Celebrated author and activist Arundhati Roy’s 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me (Penguin, 2025) continues to solidify its place in the zeitgeist and its cultural impact well into 2026, with its recent win at this year’s US National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award in the Autobiography category.

What impact did the Partition have on Dhaka's book trade?

The impact of the 1947 Partition was felt in every aspect of Dhaka's printing and publishing business, and the book trade in the new provincial capital took a momentous turn. How did it impact the booksellers, printers, and the material being published? 
26 August 2022, 13:07 PM

Ottessa Moshfegh’s ‘Lapvona’: A fairy tale for realists

Lapvona has paupers becoming princes, severe environmental disruptions adding to the owe of the common folk, and the old lady acting as a witch and healer, who serves in the role of a fairy godmother, albeit with a modern touch.
25 August 2022, 13:00 PM

‘The danger in telling a single Partition story is that it completely erases the individual’

1947 was overtaken almost immediately by the language question, and the question of identity.
25 August 2022, 07:05 AM

An Untold Story of Sri Lanka

This is a memoir of Sumaiya Samad Mehtaj who visited Sri Lanka this past June as part of a conference team. She was moved by the Lankans handling the critical situation of their country and decided to write this piece.
24 August 2022, 08:07 AM

What HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon’ promises to bring to the world of ‘A Song of Ice & Fire’

Viewers of House of the Dragon won’t find themselves in a similar predicament as the events surrounding the second Targaryen Civil War have already been documented in full in Fire & Blood (2018).  
23 August 2022, 07:13 AM

Fahmida Azim “enjoys drawing real people living extraordinary lives”

The comics portray the experiences of the Uyghur community under the anti-Muslim police state imposed in China. The story includes testimonies given to the United Nations Human Rights Council and condensed by Anthony Del Col and art direction by Josh Adams.
22 August 2022, 13:44 PM

Warm Red

A portrayal of a complex psychology, "Warm Red" tells the story of a terribly insecure man.
21 August 2022, 14:12 PM

‘Emily’ and creative freedom in literary biopics

It got me thinking that we are fascinated by the behind-the-scenes lives of our cultural obsessions, and the personal lives of authors can come to feel like public possessions just as much as their works. It is this sense of ownership that can risk conflict over films about literary icons. 
20 August 2022, 13:08 PM

Rickshawallah

Under the blazing sun, The man stands- strong hands holding on to brake, and legs tapping out a rhythm on pedals, pearls of sweat glistening down the small of a tanned back,
19 August 2022, 18:00 PM

When Your Mother is Sick – A hermit-crab fiction

Keep relatives at a distance, they will never visit but will always give untimely advice or spill half-true family secrets. 
19 August 2022, 18:00 PM

Muting Shakespeare: Watching Richard III in Shakespeare in the Park

Shakespeare in the Park is a New York institution.
19 August 2022, 18:00 PM

How Partition impacted the Dhaka book trade

With the expansion of the publishing business, bookshops also sprang up in various parts of Old Dhaka, particularly in Chawkbazar, Islampur, Mughaltuli and Patuatuli. It is estimated that the number of bookshops in Dhaka till 1900 were no less than 40. 
19 August 2022, 10:06 AM

Syed Waliullah: husband, artist, thinker, writer

The book includes excerpts from Syed Waliullah's diary, snapshots of his editorial for Contemporary magazine, handwritten edits on his pieces for Shaogat magazine, and a comprehensive bibliography of the author's work and achievements.
17 August 2022, 18:00 PM

Geetanjali Shree's 'Tomb of Sand': A woman and her many borders

There is a plot embedded here, but this novel is so much more: a long, winding journey, centred on a family, with acute eyes on love and distances within a family, but also through language, Partition and imposed borders, and so much more.
17 August 2022, 18:00 PM

Habibur Rahman's 'Thar': Unpacking the language of the Bede community

Rahman defines the Thar language and its characteristics, origins, and variations and the ethnic identity of the Bede people.
17 August 2022, 18:00 PM

Partition and the Dhaka book trade

In the first instalment of ‘Books On Record’, our new digital series on book history, Shamsuddoza Sajen writes about the impact of the Partition of India on Dhaka’s book trade. Read the article on The Daily Star website and on Daily Star Books’ Facebook and Instagram pages.
17 August 2022, 18:00 PM

2023 International Booker Prize judges announced

Chairing next year’s judges’ panel will be Leïla Slimani, the French Moroccan novelist known for books like Lullaby (2016) and Adèle (2019).
17 August 2022, 14:40 PM
17 August 2022, 01:48 AM

Mashiul Alam joins prestigious Iowa International Writing Program

Journalist and author Mashiul Alam has been selected as a resident of the 2022 Iowa International Writing Program (IWP), among the world’s most prestigious creative writing residencies.
16 August 2022, 14:21 PM

Post-Partition period in books: Prabhas Chandra, Tajuddin, and Ahmed Kamal offer testimonies

On the 75th anniversary of the 1947 Partition, we look back at the testimonies of the veteran politician, Prabhas Chandra Lahiri; the young political activist, Tajuddin Ahmed; and Professor Ahmed Kamal's book comprising research on and stories of the time.
15 August 2022, 12:58 PM
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