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Mahmud Rahman

@mahmudwriter.bsky.social
678 followers 904 following 272 posts

Writer. Translator. Short stories: Killing The Water, 2010, Penguin India. Translation: Black Ice, 2012, HarperCollins India. Nomad - Dhaka, Calcutta, Tulsa, Boston, Detroit, Providence, Bay Area, LA, Toyota, Philadelphia. 2025 NEA Translation Fellow.

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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Somehow I missed the news that Octavia Butler's Survivor novel has been recently republished. I knew she preferred the book to stay obscure, and I had not tried to hunt for a rare copy. There's a really good intro by Alyssa Collins that goes into her journey with the book.
Cover of Octavia Butler's novel Survivor next to a coffee cup.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Remembering The Mighty Sparrow who just passed. I think I first heard him when I got a hold of this album in the mid 80s. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWu...
youtube.com
Mighty Sparrow - Capitalism Gone Mad
YouTube video by Edward Spencer
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
While we watch the new Korean series Wonderfools, this was an interesting book review to come across. Korea's emergence into the global cultural stage in the last few decades is a fascinating story. Glad to see this piece raise the issue of the role of translation.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Very thorough, investigative story about a respected, famed Nepal scholar from the U.S. who stole historical treasures from Nepal. (I remember learning about one such respected man from the U.S. who stole in Bangladesh.)
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Been meaning to read this book for some time. chapter16.org/love-letter-...
chapter16.org
Love Letter to the Dollyverse
Sarah Smarsh’s She Come by It Natural—part biography, part memoir, part love letter—arrives at a fascinating time in the evolving cultural persona of Dol…
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Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Republicans have spent the last year trying to defund Dolly Parton
article about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Indianaarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Kentuckyarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Missouriiarticle about proposed GOP cuts to Imagination Library in Washington
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Why not! When people cooked up the source of Balti chicken in Baltistan, why not Baltimore!
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
DELEGATE FROM RUSSIA: I propose a new initiative. Suppose different models of shoes from the same brand fit differently? ... Imagine a child whose current shoe is a size 2. Their next pair, from the same company, in the same size, should either fall off immediately, prevent circulation, or… both.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Has our Chief Scientist Donald "Inject Bleach" Trump said anything about the illegal, bad air, swarming across our borders? Clearly it's too late to rake the forest floor up in Ontario but I would expect him to come up with other grand solutions only worthy of such a powerful true genius mind.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Sudden, unexpected deaths of certain kinds of politicians take me back to Nelson Rockefeller's. I wonder why.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Dhaka’s lost canals: "Their disappearance is a tale of negligence, greed, and weak enforcement. However, beneath the encroachment and lack of maintenance lies something older and more deliberate: an imported idea that water is a nuisance rather than an asset." www.thedailystar.net/slow-reads/b...
thedailystar.net
Dhaka: How a city was planned to drown
Dhaka waterlogging is driven by colonial urban planning that deliberately destroyed historic Dhaka canals and wetlands.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
I had the good fortune of seeing him perform with Third Rail in the summer of 1997 in San Francisco. I'd just moved to the area a few months earlier. What he did with the guitar blew me away.
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Abraham Gutman @abgutman.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Today, 230 years ago, while George and Martha Washington were having dinner, Ona Judge escaped from slavery. The first president attempted to recapture her relentlessly. But she outlived the Washingtons by 50 years. Read about those working to make Ona Judge a household name in America.
inquirer.com
At a partially restored President’s House, Philly honored Ona Judge’s daring escape from slavery
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker signed an executive order designating May 21 "Ona Judge Day" on the 230th anniversary of Judge's daring escape from George and Martha Washington.
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ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly @arablit.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Extraordinary work. A conversation w/Samar about the book: arablit.org/2026/03/16/s... A review by our Ibtihal Rida Mahmood: arablit.org/2026/03/17/m...
arablit.org
Samar Yazbek on Redefining Collective Memory
“Sometimes, I believe that silence itself could carry meaning in the face of this barbarity. Sometimes, I tell myself that I’ll stop documenting atrocities and only write literature. But all …
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Perhaps the only example I can find is this bizarre case where a French writer claiming to be the translator wrote a novel ostensibly authored by a Black American writer! crimereads.com/vernon-sulli...
crimereads.com
Vernon Sullivan: The Bestselling Writer Who Didn’t Exist
In 1946, a novel called I Spit On Your Graves (J’irai cracher sur vos tombes) appeared in France. The book was a hardboiled thriller written by a newcomer, a black American writer named Vernon Sull…
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Many Black American writers found refuge in France and set stories and novels there. Richard Wright, James Baldwin, John A. Williams, William Gardner Smith. Was this Black expat scene in France reflected in French literature? Are there works of fiction from France that focus a lens on that world?
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 14/05/2026
"Many ideas that enjoy enormous popularity among billionaires—cryogenic immortality, disregard for punctuation, the Antichrist—have scandalously been excluded from our labs and classrooms."
buff.ly
We’re Diversifying the University by Hiring More Crackpots
“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underreprese...
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 07/05/2026
“Huck shows great disrespect for the Court’s precedent in Dred Scott when aiding the fugitive Jim, presumably due to liberal indoctrination by the Widow Douglas.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/exc...
mcsweeneys.net
Excerpts from Chief Justice John Roberts’ High School English Essays
“Huck shows great disrespect for the Court’s precedent in Dred Scott when aiding the fugitive Jim, presumably due to liberal indoctrination by the Widow Doug...
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Best not to monument men or any person no matter how much they might have historically meant for a movement. I wish all the memorials to Cesar Chavez, streets, parks, holidays, can be renamed for Farmworker Justice.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Yes, "every man." Been grappling with this all day. It is only thanks to women speaking out, women accusing, women bringing out these stories that might possibly mean that the possibility of future abuse may be lessened. We have a long way to go.
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Timothy Noah @timothynoah.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Shocking but not surprising to learn Cesar Chavez sexually abused underaged girls. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/18/u... Chavez was an organizing genius who became a deranged cult leader, leaving his union a shambles, as I explained 11 years ago in the NY Review: www.nybooks.com/articles/201...
nybooks.com
The Myths of Cesar Chavez | Timothy Noah
The civil rights movement of the 1960s gets a much better press than the labor movement. Yet the two causes were intertwined. Walter Reuther, president of
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
That was an exciting table.
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Marianna Suleymanova @marsnova.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
It was a joy to spotlight the Philly literary translation scene with my brilliant friends📚🖤🦅
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Billy Penn at WHYY @billy-penn.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
We couldn't read the greats like Anna Karenina, The Metamorphosis or Don Quixote without literary translators. Philly's own are doing their part, translating anti-war journals from Russian, representing queer French texts and bringing new perspectives to the U.S. billypenn.com/2026/03/03/l...
billypenn.com
Philly’s literary translators want to increase visibility of their work
Philly has a broad translator community that allows English speakers to consume work from many different countries and cultures.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
One of the exciting things about moving to Philadelphia was discovering the city's literary translation community. In this story BillyPenn at WHYY covers Philly's translation community focusing on those of us who are part of the network Transversal. billypenn.com/2026/03/03/l...
billypenn.com
Philly’s literary translators want to increase visibility of their work
Philly has a broad translator community that allows English speakers to consume work from many different countries and cultures.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Been meaning to read Ryszard Kapuściński for a long time. Made sense to start with his book "Shah of Shahs" written when the Pahlavi monarchy was ousted. This is a different kind of book, the blurb is right that it brings a 'mythographer's perspective and a novelist's virtuosity.'
Cover image of the book Shah of Shahs.
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Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 21/02/2026
The 20th-century novelist Richard Wright and modern artist John Wilson shared a worldview that the violence they witnessed and heard stories about growing up wasn’t just about terror — it was a tool to control and exploit Black labor.
hyperallergic.com
How Richard Wright Shaped John Wilson’s Protest Art
Wilson, like Wright before him, wrestled with the psychic toll of racial violence on Black families in his paintings and lithographs.
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BeatGhoul @beatgrrrl.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
JΛZZ HΞΛVΞN: Happy birthday to the legendary singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist Nina Simone February 21, 1933–April 21, 2003 ❝What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did. ❞
Image shows a moment in time featuring iconic musician Nina Simone wearing a plaid skirt and wool sweater and holding a cigarette looking pensive next to the lake in Central Park, New York City, in 1958. image captures a moment in time featuring a smiling American singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone, photographed by Herb Snitzer. Nina Simone wearing a head wrap with head rested in hand and smiling.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Today marks the language movement of 1952 demanding official recognition of Bangla in then East Pakistan. Later the day was recognized as International Mother Language Day. I published an essay in 2018 on my journey crossing real borders, language borders. desiwriterslounge.net/articles/pap...
desiwriterslounge.net
CROSSING BORDERS, MAPPING TONGUES | DWL
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Did any of Malcolm X's followers end up studying on those scholarships to Al Azhar or the Islamic University in Medina? Are there any accounts or memoirs of those experiences?
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
Looks like some book. @diplomatofnight.com can you tell us which book? Or if not, what other source?
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
@pulpcurry.bsky.social
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
McNally Jackson has put together a list of 100 places in New York’s five boroughs significant to Black literary culture as a celebration of Black History Month’s 100th anniversary.
buff.ly
Explore Black literary NYC with this map of 100 important spots.
This year is the 100th anniversary of Black History Month, and the bookstore McNally Jackson put together a list of 100 places in New York’s five boroughs that were significant for Black literary c…
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Wow. I had a feeling this was a mistake when I saw images of the other covers.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Just got a copy from our local library. Was surprised (pleasantly, in fact) to see a cover with Soju in Korean. The spine has it in English. Online I see covers with the English superimposed over the Korean. Somehow this edition was different.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
I recall the Profumo affair. I was barely 10 in then East Pakistan & the news had arrived that our dictator Ayub Khan had attended one of the scandal-linked parties in Britain. His acolytes no doubt saw this as impressive. For me it was the first exposure to the nexus of sex, wealth, power.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Since the title was Westerners, I wondered if it would encompass more. Maybe we have yet to see films featuring new kinds of expats. My favorite real-life story from 15 years ago is one Asian origin British ambassador posted to the Asian country of his roots thinking he was the new sahib kingmaker
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Watched the movie last night, then read your article. The film and your writing are very observant of that particular moment in Asia. You have an interesting list on Letterboxd that I'll have to explore. Question: were there films with these types of chars who were not white men?
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The New York Review of Books @nybooks.com · 31/01/2026
Vanessa Ogle (@vanessahistory.bsky.social) on how the life of a single barge—from floating prison to makeshift barracks to offshore bunkhouse—tells the story of the global economy
nybooks.com
Rolling with the Economic Tides | Vanessa Ogle
Ian Kumekawa’s Empty Vessel follows the lifespan of one barge, from bunkhouse to floating prison to barracks and back, as it traces the shadowy outer limits of the maritime economy.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
On a visit to Dhaka, Bangladesh, last August, I met my 15 year old self and he reminded me how movements that shake a nation can influence children in schools. I tried to recall how our ideas got shaped at that moment. alalodulal.org/2026/01/29/j...
alalodulal.org
Remembering the Josephite Action Committee, 1969
During his visit to Dhaka in August 2025, writer Mahmud Rahman encountered a street art panel highlighting political discussions in schools. Reflecting on past student movements against dictatorshi…
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Himal Southasian @himalsouthasian.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Calling all translators of Southasian languages! Original submissions for Himal Fiction Fest 2026: Southasian Fiction in Translation are now open. Please help us to spread the word to applicants. Deadline: 1 April. #SouthasianFiction #Translation #CallForSubmissions #SouthasianLiterature
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
His translations are still in print. This is one Bangla translation of Chariots of the Gods. Debotar Rath.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
I hadn't realized he was still alive. I only had vague memories of his books while living in the U.S. in the 70s but when I spent some time in Bangladesh 16 years ago I learned about his impact in South Asia, both among those who read him with curiosity and others who greatly admired him.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
Greetings from a rainy Philly day!
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
'But “Someday at Christmas” ... arrives gently—strings, a winter hush—and then it does something that most Christmas songs refuse to do: it looks directly at the world’s violence and says, without metaphor, that it’s incompatible with the season’s promises.' www.kolumnmagazine.com/2025/12/25/t...
kolumnmagazine.com
The Christmas Stevie Wonder Wanted - KOLUMN Magazine
Inside Hitsville, a teenage prodigy, two Motown songwriters, and a producer with a clock in his head built an anti-war carol that still sounds like tomorrow.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
You might want to come visit Philadelphia.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Did he also park the car in the middle of the street and block traffic on Dickinson?
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
"The Candy Lady was commerce braided into care—mutual aid with a price tag, childcare funded by snacks, block governance conducted in quarters. And like most infrastructure in Black America, she was simultaneously ordinary and heroic." www.kolumnmagazine.com/2025/12/21/t...
kolumnmagazine.com
The Candy Lady Was the System - KOLUMN Magazine
Across Black America, a front-room business became a neighborhood’s smallest, steadiest institution—priced in quarters and governed by respect.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Ian Fleming's James Bond spurred numerous imitations, including East Pakistan/Bangladesh's Masud Rana Agent MR-9, still continuing from Dhaka's Sheba publishers. Here Andrew Nette explores the response from the Soviet bloc. Knew nothing of this until this piece.
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Mahmud Rahman @mahmudwriter.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
"If there is a collapse in Western societies, it is not merely a collapse of media or political structures. It is much worse. It may well be a collapse of the human personality."
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