Once an inquisitive reader asked me, “Could you please tell me where do the fiction-writers get so many stories from?”

Himu has none of the intelligence or powers of deduction of Misir Ali. Himu says the wrong thing at the wrong time. He helps people, but only after causing undue chaos and misery.

DS Books is excited to launch this new series comprising reviews of “light reads” which explore heavier, sensitive topics. In this first instalment, we look at a young adult romance novel that depicts the challenging experiences of adolescent Muslims.

Cramped amidst the rows and rows of books at Bookworm Bangladesh, performers, instruments, and cameras came together to produce music over the past few weeks. On Saturday, November 14, 2020, the first episode of Dhaka Sessions will be aired on YouTube, with the cult favourite band Nemesis as the first performers.

On November 1, 2020, author Shaheen Akhtar was awarded the 3rd Asian Literary Award for the Korean translation of her 2004 novel Talaash—which traces the lives of Birangona women decades after the 1971 Liberation War.

Sarah Hendren’s What Can a Body Do? How We Meet the Built World (Riverhead Books, 2020) is a collection of case stories in which she helps one understand the lives of those living with disabilities, and how able-bodied perceptions on assistive technology and prosthetics can fail in practice.

Fakir Lalon Shah—who orally composed thousands of songs in Bengali —died on October 17, 1890—on Kartik 01, 1297 (the Bengali year).

O Allah, into your endless plays Who could delve— You call out to Allah Being Allah yourself.

Serve your human guru first With your heart and soul If you feel like fulfilling Your yearnings in this world.

No need to wonder what you are: Bengal’s brightest, closest star in the night sky - though on the Earth none noticed your auspicious birth.

“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made the war inevitable,” Thucydides wrote in The History of the Peloponnesian War.

Tahmima Anam’s play Shahrazad, written for UK-based arts organisation Komola Collective and live streamed on October 29, 2020, adopts the

In 2016, while already involved in conducting school-wide workshops on the topic, Sharmin Kabir began to think of ways in which adolescents could be taught about menstrual health in a friendly manner. “What would the children be left with once the workshop was over and Sharmin and her team had left?” she wondered.

I’ve long come to accept that there’s no such thing as a suitable adaption of a favourite book. Yet, when it was announced that Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (1993), a novel I have loved through the decades, was going to be adapted by the BBC for a miniseries—and directed by Mira Nair, no less—I couldn’t help but feel hopeful about the possibilities. Could this really be… the one?

Bangladeshi author Shaheen Akhtar has been awarded the 3rd Asian Literary Award for her novel Talaash (Mowla Brothers, 2009), which depicts the lasting suffering of Birangona women—survivors of sexual violence during the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.

An adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca seemed especially well-timed, with its theme of imprisonment at home, as well as the timeless pull of social expectations on one’s identity.

Literature can help. It strengthens your mind, gives it a break from reality, helps you see things from a different perspective. It can take you to another time and place.

Halloween is merely a cover--our lives seem plenty steeped in horror this year, confined within physical and psychological walls, breathing in

When I was a child, every night, I’d ask my parents to tell me a story when they tucked me into bed. From talking trees to scheming foxes, the mystical realm of Bengali folklore was a bottomless well from which my pre-adolescent mind drank with thirst. It led me to what can only be deemed as the Holy Grail of Bengali folklore: Thakurmar Jhuli (1907).

Effigies with their own minds, tinkling music boxes, mysterious cracks in the wall, and a long-haired spectre trailing the grounds of a vast,