11 May , 1988 Islamabad , Pakistan Dear Jilani kaka, Sorry for not replying sooner . It’s been five weeks here in Islamabad . The journey from Kabul was long yet it was worth it . You should come as soon as you find your youngest son, Jahin . You would not believe when …
His lyrical novels about exile and loss enjoy critical acclaim but modest sales. Now he’s Zanzibar’s second most famous son – and £840,000 richer. The writer talks about racism on British buses, Priti Patel, and why books have to entertain Abdulrazak Gurnah seems preternaturally calm for someone who has suddenly found themselves in the full …
more “‘I could do with more readers!’ – Abdulrazak Gurnah on Nobel prize win”
Kazuo Ishiguro returns with a novel about an artificial friend, Zadie Smith brings the Wife of Bath bang up to date, Bill Gates takes on the climate crisis … a literary calendar for the year ahead January 4 Winners of five Costa category awards announced. 8 The Father released – Florian Zeller directs an adaptation …
Fiction The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) In this magnificent novel, Whitehead once again draws inspiration from true atrocities of America’s past, this time creating a fictional account of a real-life Florida reform school for boys that was infamous for torturing and killing its poor black students, and then secretly burying their bodies, in …
Stories have the power to change us. We asked a panel of leading writers, curators and critics to choose 100 genre-busting novels that have had an impact on their lives, and this is the result. These English language novels, written over the last 300 years, range from children’s classics to popular page turners. Organised into …
As the perspicacity of unbearable radiation started burning the insides of his eyelids, Sebastian thought of the last thing he saw before closing his eyes: a yellow warning board with the symbol for extreme radiation. Beneath the symbol there was a sentence written in black marker – “You are not alone.” Sebastian was walking into …
কোন কোন দিন বেদনা রঙিন স্বপ্নরা বুকে বিব্রত বসবাস। শ্রাবন শ্বাসীত ভাল আজও বাসিতে নিশিতের অন্ধ আকাশ। অনাহূত সুখ অবিরত ভাসুক চোখেরই জ্বলে, ঘর বাধা হত আমারএই ক্ষত, তোমার ছোঁয়ায় প্রশান্ত হলে। অশান্ত মন, বসন্ত শ্রাবন , সময় গিয়েছে ঢের তবু শ্বাশত সত্য কেপে উঠে চিত্ত যদি মনে পড়ে ফের। জানি এখন তুমি কনকচাঁপা রাত্রি …
মাছ-মাংসের বাজার ঘুরে, সবজি কিনে ঘরে ফিরি রোজ। তাতে আমার কোন দুঃখ নেই, দুঃখ থাকবারও কথা নয়। শুধু আমার বাবার কথা মনে পড়ে, মনে পড়ে শৈশবের ছোট ছোট দুটো হাত কেমন বড় বড় দুটো হাতের ভেতর লুকিয়ে যেত- কেমন করে বাবা বুঝে যেত আমি ঠিক কোন মাছটা চাই! তখন অই ছয়ফুট লম্বা অতবড় মানুষটাকে মনে …
Between 2005 and 2009 in an isolated Mennonite colony in Bolivia, women and girls (as young as 3) regularly woke up groggy and bruised, their sheets smeared with blood and semen. Some members of the conservative patriarchal community blamed demons; others attributed these reports to “wild female imagination.” In reality, nine men in the close-knit …
more “‘Women Talking,’ by Miriam Toews, Is a Mennonite #MeToo Novel”
A candle burns somewhere in the room. A pleading voice weeps somewhere else, ‘don’t leave me’; there are hushed whispers that play along with the untimely monsoon breeze. An unapologetic moon hangs carelessly from the navy sky; its beam being the only company to the candle that burns away with the pleading that goes on. …
