OPINION: Rokeya’s tolerance and magnanimity

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932) pursued her sustained literary, educational and political activism in the face of stiff social opposition from critics unwilling to accept her gender egalitarian messages positively.
9 December 2015

Two Poems by Bimal Guha

War is a sky shattering fierce roar of clouds, quick footsteps
4 December 2015

Undergraduate poem comes to light

In 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from Oxford for writing a pamphlet promoting atheism. This wasn't his first offence.
4 December 2015

Tête-à-tête with Ramachandra Guha

Nirupama Subramaniam meets writer and historian Ramachandra Guha on the sunlit balcony of the authors lounge at the Bangla Academy during the Dhaka Lit Fest. Despite the weight of being a public intellectual and academic, there is a lightness about his presence. The author of India before Gandhi (Penguin; 2013) and Patriots and Partisans (Penguin; 2012) speaks at a fast pace, stabbing the air to make a point, as though he feels each word deeply. It is almost like listening to a story.
4 December 2015

Everyday Arthur Rimbaud

“Do you believe in love? That love exists? Between a man and a woman?”
27 November 2015

LADDER ON FIRE

Every Bohemian fairytale I have read starts off with a man who has too many kids and too little money; money which he impulse buys a rope with...
27 November 2015

Fictional Deaths

We all have gone through that horrible phase of curling up in our beds and crying over the deaths of our favourite fictional characters...
25 November 2015

Kafkaesque Thought

Franz Kafka is an icon of 20th century literature. The Metamorphosis, a novella written in 1912, is considered as his seminal work of fiction.
20 November 2015

SUNDOWN

As had been happening to him a lot lately, especially during a long wait, he dozed off. It occurred to him that he could not keep his...
20 November 2015

Indomitable

A new Malayalam book “Njaan enna Murivu” has three Bangla words written on its cover -- “Ahoto Ami” (The injured
17 November 2015

MARCHING HUMANITY

They are walking altogether - dragging their feet
13 November 2015

DEMONS

This is an excerpt of Nesar Nadim's début novel "Demons". The book is available in the bookstores and at rokomari.com
13 November 2015

In remembrance of Humayun Ahmed, the wizard of words

Humayun Ahmed is the most celebrated writer of contemporary time and one of the best story tellers in the history of Bangla literature.
13 November 2015

Strange motivations

I'm grateful to the novelist James Meek for introducing me to a new critical term. Reviewing Jonathan Franzen'sPurity (“From Wooden to Plastic”, LRB, 24/09/15), Meek writes that the first appearance of Leila Helou“is couched in the leaden terms of the Unaccountably
6 November 2015

FREE WRITING

I have been asked to write a few words about my experience, with the purpose of offering inspiration to young Bangladeshis. But my personal history seems to me so particular as to be of little use to anybody: for one thing, although I was born in Bangladesh, I grew up mainly in the West.
6 November 2015

Finish the Book and Die

I first came across the term “Pulling a Robert Jordan” while reading a 2011 New Yorker essay on George R.R. Martin and the treatment some ...
30 October 2015

THE SECOND WIFE

In our family my maternal grandmother was known as Choti Amma. She was indeed my nana's second wife. The first wife or Buri Amma...
30 October 2015

The genius making sense with his 'nonsense'

In remembrance of Sukumar Ray, the great Bangalee poet, story writer and playwright Bangla literature will forever be indebted to.
30 October 2015

Cow fattening tablets seized

At least 50,000 cattle fattening tablets were seized yesterday in Hakimpur upazila of the district by members of Border Guard Bangladesh
27 October 2015

Two Songs

I pray not for you to guard me in danger time and again
23 October 2015