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What the Ink? was launched at the Hay Festival, the first of its kind held in Dhaka, on November 21 at the British council. What the Ink? is an anthology of some aspiring writers from Bangladesh and some other countries who have at some point of other have resided in the country. For the past few decades South Asian writers are making their voices heard in the world literary arena. Our very own poet Kaiser Haq has already reigned the genre for quite some time now. Expatriate Bangladeshis like Adib Khan, Manju Islam, Mahmud Rahman, Tahmima Anam as well as Bangladeshi born British writer Monica Ali have paved the paths for the newer generation. What we see in this book is a swarm of aspiring writers who want their voices to be heard, their stories to be told. Fifteen writers anthologized their short stories, poems and excerpts from novels in the 185 page book, published by the Writers Block. The first story Gift can be mistaken for a drama on one of the TV channels. The writer Arup Sana...

His quest to learn what his eight children thought of his family and the way they grew up led the Nobel Laureate, Günter Grass, to write Die Box. Although the eight children shared the same father, they were born of different mothers. So they gathered around a table to reminisce their childhood. The twins Pat and Jorsch, who were the first born, were asked to talk first. Then came the little girl, Lara, followed by Taddle. Then there was one more girl named Lena from a different mother and Nana, Jasper and Paulchen. Die Box by Günter Grass, published in 2008, is known as his second volume of memoirs, the first one being Beim Häuten der Zwiebel or Peeling the Onion (2007). Die Box was translated by Krishna Winston in 2010 as The Box: Tales from the Darkroom. Winston is a professor of German Studies at The Wesleyan connection. The Box: Stories from The Dark Room is really about a box, a pre-war camera and the woman behind the camera. Her name was Mariechen. She had remained close to the ...

Ogni O Jol is a collection of eleven short stories by young and established writers, and three papers by researchers. Story tellers always look for their raw materials in everyday happenings, in their surroundings. This has in fact been an age-old process. Here is a project conducted by Shamim Azad who gathered some researchers from Nigeria, England, Ghana, Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh to conduct a workshop named 'Pathways of Women Empowerment'. Twenty five authors took part in the six month long workshop. The findings were given to some writers in the form of video clippings and case studies. The writers then put their imagination at work and came up with some extraordinary stories about some very ordinary women of Bangladesh in this book. The book is comprised of two stories in English and all others in Bangla, and the group of writers covers both genders. Firdous Azim, well known Professor of English, shares her views about transforming research work into fiction. The asso...

"I have a hole for a mouth” is pronounced by Manju Islam's protagonist of his second novel. The book Song of Our Swampland is based on the war of Independence of Bangladesh. It is also a book about the unanswered questions, unfulfilled dreams that the nation faces after four decades of its independence. That may be the reason why the writer portrays his characters with such deformity. The book is divided into three segments the last of which is titled 'The Island' where the protagonist Kamal takes shelter only to find another character who is a half bodied human known as the 'legless'. Manju Islam is an expatriate living in the United Kingdom for more than three decades. This is the author's fourth book, the first being The Ethics of travels: Marcopolo to Kafka, which is more of an academic book. The second book is Mapm-akers of Spitalfields, a collection of short stories mostly about the vibrant immigrant life of the Bengalis living in England. The third b...

For more than two decades Papree Rahman has reigned the world of Bangla literature with her expertise in writing, editing and critiquing but she seems to be at her best in storytelling. She tells her stories with an insight that is derived from extensive research. She has done so in all three of her novels Poranodir Shopnopuran, Boyon, the latest one being Palatia. She often says: “I only write when I get something very interesting to write on.” The reader sees the truth in the statement while reading Palatia. Even though the most interesting thing about the book may seem to be the subject of the novel; it is the craftsmanship Papree Rahman uses depicting the language of the actors of Palatia that mesmerizes the readers. The novel is written in the dialect of Dinajpur. The writer expresses the feelings of her characters with the language. Palatia is a kind of act which is specific to its birthplace, Dinajpur. The producers, directors and the actors all come from poverty stricken famili...

A Visit to Kolkata Book Fair Jackie Kabir About 1.6 milion people visited this year’s Kolkata Book Fair. A group of Bangladeshi writers and readers were in Kolkata to attend the Book Fair from January 26 to 29 this year. The fair is held every year for 12 days starting on the last Wednesday of January as a tradition. The visit was organised by The Reading Circle known more commonly as TRC and Gantha, a platform where people writing in Bangla and people writing in English meet every month to exchange their views and ideas. Sometimes they read from their work, at other times they invite famous writers to conduct workshops on creative writing. The Reading Circle, on the other hand, meets once every month to read a chosen book or some books by a certain author depending on the availability of the book. The group gave a talk at the AC hall in Kolkata about the book club. Speakers mentioned that they regularly met for the past five years and that they successfully read 60 books within these ...

Razia Sultana has been teaching Bangla literature since the early 1970s. She has carried out research on many different aspects of Bangla folklore. Shahitya Bikkhon is one such book where the author has brought in nine essays which range from women depicted in the Old and Middle Ages in Bangla literature, baromashi songs describing the anguish of separation in the lives of rural women and the famous poem Bidrohi by Kazi Nazrul Islam. There are essays on the works of giants like Nawazish Khan and Mozammel Haque in Bangla literature. The hard work of the author is visible in the writing. It gives one an insight into the subjects that she deals with. Women in the Middle Ages were very simple, as the book notes. They hardly used any make up. The only things that were available locally, herbal products, were used for beautification. A special kind of smoke was used to perfume them. The weather also had effects on the mood of Bengali women as it was neither too hot nor too cold and the women...