Izumi Suzuki was little known outside of Japan during her short lifetime. The Japanese author and actress had remained a cult figure most of her life.

The book invites you to revel in the world of legends, to dream as you once did as a child.

As 2025 rolls around, spelling yet another year of reading about writing and writing about reading, we asked the Star Books and Literature family to share their top writing tips for our readers.

Research on Aviation Safety: Safety is a Mindset by Air Commodore Munim Khan Majlish is a fresh look at the concept of aviation safety challenging standard ideas about safety.

The University Press Limited (UPL) celebrated its anniversary with readers, writers and well-wishers. The exchange of greetings was held from 4 PM to 8 PM at the UPL central office, located at Green Road in Farmgate area of Dhaka, on December 13 (Friday).

I weave Hibiscuses in your hair and Along with them I softly weave the strings of my I love you’s. Your eyes are closed as you soak in my touch and Your lips are pressed thin as if imprisoning yours.

My Bangla Sings out every morning One language Many songs

For educators: My go-to text on 1971 is Jahanara Imam’s Ekattorer Dinguli. It’s a deeply personal and powerful memoir that I believe every student should engage with to truly feel the emotional and human cost of the war. The way she documents her experiences, especially the loss of her son, is heart-wrenching and offers a perspective that transcends history—it becomes deeply relatable and unforgettable.

Obayed Haq’s Bangla novel, Arkathi, is almost a bildungsroman tale filled with adventure and self-reflection. In true bildungsroman fashion, where the protagonist progresses into adulthood with room for growth and change, a bulk of Haq’s novel talks about the spiritual journey that an orphan, Naren, takes through a forest in order to mature, and comes out on the other side to realise a community’s deep, hidden truth.

Proverbs, short and profound, often sum up wisdom passed down through generations. Bangla, one of the world’s most spoken languages, is rich with such gems. One such saying in the language—”manush ki bolbe?”—is central to Intimacies of Violence, a debut book by Dr Nadine Shaanta Murshid, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.

Zines are a new name for an old thing. They are the revolutionary pamphlets of the 1930s, and the underground student manifestos of the ‘50-’60s. They are a distant relative of the tattered choti mags. There are many other examples from around the world of self-published, self-distributed, and often dangerous reading material.

Someone in a chat group somewhere called Sally Rooney the ‘Taylor Swift’ of the literary world, and now I cannot unsee it.

Patriarchy would have you believe that women are inherently complicated—creatures who must be defined, boxed in, or reduced to stereotypes.

November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, marks the beginning of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which goes until December 10, Human Rights Day.

Bangladesh is currently going through turbulent times as it tries to find its way out from dictatorial political rule towards an uncertain future. During the past decade,  Bangladesh did achieve significant economic progress, but it came with increased economic inequality, unparalleled corruption, and loss of personal freedom.

The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.

The city of Prague, now the capital of the Czech Republic, was once the breeding hotspot of the 20th century’s greatest writers, scientists, scholars, and activists.

Folk Melody of Bangladesh: An Anthology of Bangladesh Folk Music in Standard Notation is a music anthology that compiles 204 carefully chosen folk songs of Bangladesh that date from the 16th century.

In January 2023, I was sitting in the crowd, listening in on a panel at the 10th and possibly the final edition of the Dhaka Lit Fest. Sheikh Hasina had already been in power for almost 15 years, and it felt like the sun would never set on Awami League, at least not in my lifetime. 

With the departure of an autocrat and the period of semi-expected-still-frightening chaos after, comes the period when we have to sit down to think of what comes ahead, know what we must not do, and get some direction on how we are supposed to go on. In light of this, the following articles and/or chapters have been curated for perspectives that might be needed in this unprecedented situation we’ve found ourselves in.