Essay / ‘The Odyssey’ and what we lose when myth belongs only to its heroes
15 September 2026
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Essay
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026) is everything audiences expect from a modern mythological epic: grand battles, brutal violence and a hero caught between glory and guilt. Adapted from Homer’s ancient Greek poem, the film is an impressive feat of action-adventure cinema. But for all its spectacle, it loses something when the myth remains so firmly centred on its hero: the women whose stories are left underwritten.
News Report / BRAC Institute of Languages and The Daily Star redefine English Education for youth
13 September 2026
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News
Book review: Fiction / Finding home, identity, and art in ‘Parsa’s Pithas’
11 September 2026
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Reviews
Essay / Out of the archives, into the feed
11 September 2026
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Books & Literature
Event Report / Kobitabela: a soulful afternoon
9 September 2026
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News
Creative Nonfiction / Two nights that lit Azimpur
5 September 2026
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Creative non-fiction
Essay / Whose literary production?: Anthropic’s Project Panama
5 September 2026
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Essay
Reflections / Artificial convenience vs real-life consequences
3 September 2026
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Reflection
Essay / When writing needs an alibi
3 September 2026
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Essay
Literary Curtains / Patriarchy inversed: Reimagining Rokeya’s Ladyland in 2026
“Ladyland is not perfect,” remarks Sultana, one of the protagonists in the much awaited play, “Project Ladyland 2026”. Produced by HerStory Foundation in collaboration with the British Council and Women of the World Foundation, the play was greeted by a full house this weekend. Staged at the Bangladesh Mohila Samiti theatre, the performance made a splash on Friday, August 14.
News Report / Jamir Nazir wins 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize following AI review
3 July 2026
Set in rural Trinidad, “The Serpent in the Grove” explores themes of betrayal, survival and the resilience of a woman's will.
News Report / Kazuo Ishiguro set to return with new novel in 2027
20 June 2026
Ishiguro’s novels have, over his 40-plus-year career, ranged from historical fiction to fantasy to science fiction.
The shelf / 7 Asian healing fiction recommendations for rainy days
18 June 2026
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The Shelf
You know when the sky trades its brightness for a low, silver hue, and you wrap your fingers tightly around your tea, seeking that small, steady pulse of warmth. This is the essence of healing fiction. Often rooted in the Japanese concept of iyashikei, these stories focus on the quiet spirit through small, everyday moments. You may have already heard of Days at the Morisaki Bookshop or We’ll Prescribe You a Cat. While those popular favourites have opened a door for many, there are a few other tales worth the read.
Reflections / In the age of AI allegations
13 June 2026
Fiction / Body Selim
18 April 2026
Home
Loosened from the
narrative of my own living
is a world
18 July 2026
The knife seller
People call me the Knife Seller.
I cannot recall when the name came to be. Neither did I ever correct anyone. I preferred it that way. It makes my job easier.
18 July 2026
The teacher beyond the classroom
My earliest memories of Professor Fakrul sir are, naturally, of the classroom.
18 July 2026
A silent warning against the modern life
The story marks a quiet departure from Obayed Haq’s recent releases, while also hinting at the pitfalls of modernity. In today’s fast-paced world, amid the noise and light pollution of everyday life, Obayed Haq’s protagonist reminds readers to slow down, or at least to take a long, hard look at our easy enmeshment with the “modern” life.
16 July 2026
Who wrote the life you’re living?
Are you writing about your life in your own way? Or are you merely borrowing the very strings that tie you to society’s expectations? Through Tokyo’s gauzy midnight light, Mieko Kawakami’s All the Lovers in the Night captures the stillness of a generation suspended between desire and exhaustion, passion and pressure which reveal paralysis as cultural weather rather than personal defect.
16 July 2026
Let there be monsters: On AI mythology
Ask any room of people about their deepest fears regarding artificial intelligence, and eight out of 10 will likely invoke a takeover narrative—the “Frankenstein syndrome”, where the creation turns against the creator.
16 July 2026
“Our Story”: Where parents and children made memories by hand
A unique and heartwarming workshop, designed to celebrate the beautiful journey of parenthood through creative expression and quality time
15 July 2026
What he called love
A photograph slipped from an envelope while Alia rummaged through an old metal trunk.
11 July 2026
A cruel radiance of vibrant yearning
In this essay, Jibanananda Das’s poem “In Camp” is presented within a new theoretical framework. My primary objective is to dissect it in the light of my proposed “Existential-Imagism.” (The Daily Star, 2026).
11 July 2026
The Naysayer
A name. The Naysayer. A terrible name he had earned, a name he had carried in rage and grief. But it no longer mattered. What mattered was this world. With a wave of his hand, the layers of ash and dust peeled back like dying petals, revealing the scorched land above. He stepped onto the surface of the dead world, unsteady, grief filling his ancient heart as he beheld the guttering fires.
10 July 2026
5 books published in this year’s Boi Mela that you should read
For readers who like short fiction with range, Upoma Odhikari’s Hibernation is an easy recommendation. The book brings together seven stories across different genres, written in a soft, distinctly Bangladeshi voice that feels increasingly confident as you go.
7 July 2026
Leftovers
Morning greets us with
Upturned eyes. Or is it just me?
4 July 2026
Incomplete
Get drunk by Gazal they say,
I never understood that
Until now,
4 July 2026
Where the blood doesn’t speak
When Reza was 10, war lived on the rooftop.
4 July 2026
Jamir Nazir wins 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize following AI review
Set in rural Trinidad, “The Serpent in the Grove” explores themes of betrayal, survival and the resilience of a woman's will.
3 July 2026
Dua Lipa launches library of banned and censored books in Portugal
British singer-songwriter Dua Lipa has launched the Manifesto Library, a permanent collection of banned and censored books at Livraria Lello in Porto. Opened as part of the BABELL—City of Books festival, the library features nearly 100 titles challenged or restricted over themes of race, sexuality, politics, and LGBTQIA+ identity, including works by Margaret Atwood, Salman Rushdie, and others.
2 July 2026
Till human voices wake us and we drown
Sami lives in a tiny fishing village off the coast of the Bay of Bengal, eking out a living alongside his grandfather fishing in the same rising waters that claimed his parents and his childhood home.
2 July 2026
‘Where My Darlings Lie Buried’: Navigating grief with Sufia Kamal through poetry
I first understood that grief has a separate grammar long before I could find words for it.
2 July 2026
Of faith, desire, and the threshold between
On the Brink of Belief is flawed and uneven, and at its best, extraordinary. It does not offer comfort or resolution. What it offers instead is a record. Of survival, yes, but also of tenderness, desire, formal experiment, theological argument, and erotic joy. Across this region, in these conditions, with these stakes, people are writing. This anthology insists you take it seriously, and it earns that insistence on almost every page.
30 June 2026
In conversation with Sonia Bahl: Author of ‘Eighteen Inches Apart’
What becomes increasingly evident across Bahl’s three novels is her sustained fascination with the emotional significance of almosts and maybes.
26 June 2026
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