Eminent Bengali writer Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay has been chosen as a fellow of India’s Sahitya Akademi, its highest honour for a living writer.

Oorja, as her name suggests, is a bright young girl who is the main protagonist of the story. The novel begins with her travelling back to India after her mother’s demise. She reaches home only to find her father missing. The rest of the book is a journey of love, healing, and rediscovery of her own self. 

This dawn is unvarying, lovely, peaceful, dewy, Morning sky has opened its store of breathing clouds,

Jointly edited by Ahasan Hydar and Snigdhadip Chakraborty, Ek Ashchorjo Phul Binoy Majumdar (Ashroy Prokashon, 2021) is a valuable book on the life and work of Bengali poet Binoy Majumdar, who was born on September 17, 1934.

Sufibad O Sufider Shorup Shondhaney (‘In search of the nature of Sufism and Sufis’), written by Syed Rezaul Karim and published in 2020 by Bangla Academy, is a welcome addition to the meager collection of books written in Bangla on Sufism.

I am convinced that while writing her book, The Begum and the Dastan (Westland Publications, 2021), Tarana Husain Khan’s aim was to leave her readers in a literary stupor, dizzy and yearning for more.

The 2021 Booker Prize shortlist was revealed on September 15, with six of the previously announced 13-novel longlist making the cut. Each of the six authors are to receive GBP 2,500, while the winner, to be announced on November 3 at the BBC Radio Theatre, will receive GBP 5,000. Notably, and much like 2020’s competition, only one British author is named in the shortlist.

Dr Anand Bikash Chakma, Associate Professor at the department of History, Chittagong University, launched his book, Carpus Mahal Theke Shanti Chukti: Parbotto Chattogram-e Rashtrio Nitir Itihash (University Press Limited, 2021), at a virtual programme organised by UPL on September 9, 2021. 

The annual competition, which has been hailed as “India's most valuable literature prize”, offers INR 2,500,000 (USD 35,000) to its winner for distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in or translated to English.

Zubaan Books has released a hardback edition of Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East, concerning the still-felt ramifications of the 1947 partition.

With the onset of the new millennium in the 21st century, there seems to be a revival of interest in the space, in the eastern part of South Asia, historically known as Bengal, and the people who inhabit this space, the Bengalis.

I had decided to write a brief review of Selima Chowdhury’s book when it was first published, but what with one thing or another making me put it off, a couple of years rolled by, and we found ourselves caught up in a pandemic with no end in sight.

From August 2021, Daily Star Books was excited to have joined Bookcentric’s monthly reading challenge, which invites readers to read and review books following each month’s designated theme. Under August’s theme of books with nautical themes, here is what our readers read—and reviewed—last month!

Typical of any Samanta Schweblin story from her International Booker-longlisted collection, Mouthful of Birds (OneWorld, 2019), a sense of anxiety is strongly perceptible here, especially through the characters Fi and Pe. One grows afraid of them as they start showing both lovingly caring and Big Brother-like tendencies. What heightens the ominous halo surrounding these two is the hostages’ inability to translate their emotions; why would someone who provides for you not give you a way out?

Originally published as a series of short stories in the 1940s, the Foundation series—expanded later with a string of prequels and sequels—became Asimov’s greatest contribution to the genre and remains, to this day, one of the greatest reads for any SF connoisseur. 

Acclaimed Bengali writer Buddhadeb Guha, author of many notable works such as `Madhukari' (Honey Gatherer), died of post-Covid complications yesterday at a hospital in Kolkata at the age of 85.

Ataur Rahman, well known humour writer, diplomat, and former director general of the postal department, passed away from a Coronavirus infection yesterday. He was 79 years old. 

Being accused of copying Humayun made me want to create something of my own, something that wouldn’t be considered mainstream, but nor would it be too out of the box. I wanted to reflect on realism.

The prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize competition returns for its 11th iteration, opening its doors for short story submissions from September 1 to November 1, 2021 (11:59pm in any time zone). 

Guns Germs and Steel was first published in 1997 and received the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction the following year. Reading this book has been an incredible experience. Each time I put the book down for the day I had to gasp for air because I had been totally immersed, rather like deep sea diving and looking at the world in a new dimension.