Valentine’s Day’s connection with love was probably invented by Chaucer and other 14th-century poets

Courtly medieval literature has an important part to play with Saint Valentine and his romantic associations

Jaws turns 50: In Peter Benchley’s novel, you barely mind if its self-loathing characters are eaten by a ‘genius’ shark

Benchley, horrified by the bad rap his novel gave sharks, would go on to become an ecological activist focused on shark protection

Sultana’s Dream: Rokeya Hossain’s feminist utopian novel recognised as ‘Memory of the World’

Ramacharitmanas by Tulsidas, Panchatantra and Sahrdayaloka Lochana by Anandavardhana also recognised by UNESCO

Three things historical literature can teach us about the climate crisis

The climate emergency may be unprecedented, but there are a few key ways in which past literature offers a valuable perspective on the present crisis

Songs of calm fury: Kazi Nazrul Islam’s words helped generations find inner strength to fight hunger, injustice

Remembering Nazrul’s poems that called for revolution on his 125th birth anniversary

Ode to the poem: why memorising poetry still matters for human connection

Internalising a poem need not be a rote process. Done right, in fact, it is an intellectual exercise that illuminates the structure and logic of …

Evolution and Science-fiction: Marriage of facts and fantasy

It is nearly impossible to consume a work of science-fiction that concerns itself with evolution without acknowledging Darwin’s role

Literature from the Congo Basin offers ways to address the climate crisis

Literature offers ways to communicate about complex issues like the current global climate emergency

Can reading fiction literally change your mind?

Is there weight to claims that reading can make you a better person – or are they just tall tales?

Milan Kundera’s ‘remarkable’ work explored oppression, inhumanity – and the absurdity of being human

The focus of Kundera’s novels is their wrestle with questions of knowledge, the complexity of being and a constant uncertainty

She sells seashells

Book>> The Fossil Hunter • by Shelley Emling, Palgrave Macmillan • Rs 450

Old Father Time: As another year rolls by, some poems on moments in Time by eminent poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

We hope these poems can provide our readers with something to reflect on as they bid adieu to 2023 and get set to welcome 2024

Empathy, policy, and lessons from literature: remembering Munshi Premchand

In the era of ChatGPT and machine-based learning, policymakers and educators must revisit literature and introduce it as a mandatory component in …

Green lore

Environment has been intrinsic to our oral traditions much before we developed writing. But it is only in the past decade or two that …