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‘Silent Noise’: Celebrating everydayness Zarin Rafiuddin Published at 08:13 PM April 16, 2018   A book review The stories in Jackie Kabir’s Silent Noise have an element of everydayness to them. Their titles wrap around this. From “Mundane Monday” to “The Visit” and “Arshi,” the stories are about ordinary people and ordinary lives. Yet, Kabir shows, the ordinary and everydayness is not as simplistic and uncomplicated as people think it is. Her stories begin with a certain sense of anxiousness or relaxation that seems to be what anyone living in a city or quiet town can relate to, only to transform in a few sentences the ending into something unexpected, even puzzling or sad sometimes. This is the impression that one is left with, upon reading this anthology. The feelings and themes are known to most readers as they strike down to the heart of the matter. And, from experience, we know that the heart of the matter can be convoluted or even emotionally fru

Translation of Alice Munro works published  “Alice Munro: Nirbachito Golpo” (Alice Munro: Selected Stories”), published by Mowla Brothers, was launched on April 22 at the Edward M Kennedy Center, Dhaka.  Benoit-Pierre Laramée, High Commissioner of Canada to Bangladesh, was the Chief Guest at the event, says a press release. In his address, Benoit-Pierre Laramée spoke about Canadian literature and the significance of Alice Munro. He then read an extract from Munro's short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain”. Set in an old people's home, the story sensitively narrates the plight of an old woman suffering from memory loss. Professor Firdous Azim, Head, Department of English and Humanities, BRAC University and Dr Masuduzzaman, Professor, Institute of Education and Research, University of Dhaka, discussed on the book. She pointed out that more people are familiar with Margaret Atwood, but it was reading the Bangla translations that inspired her to read Munro&

He said she was his Achilles' heel long before she had read Homer. "What's an Achilles' heel?" She asked with the innocence of a teenager even though she was in her twenties. She had never really grown up, her mother would tell everyone. She was too naïve for the world. Achilles was a demi-god, his father being the mortal Peleus, the king of Myrmidons; but his mother Thetis was a goddess. She wanted him to be immortal like herself. She did everything in her power to give him immortality. She put ambrosial ointment all over his body after burning him in fire every night. She dunked him in the river Styx since it was believed that the immortal gods bathed in the water of that river and that conferred invulnerability to its bathers. There was just one problem though! She had held him tight at his heels, fearing that he might drown and as a result, not a single drop of water would reach his heels.  Hence the weakest part of his body was his heels. Year