Mahmud Rahman
@mahmudwriter.bsky.social
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.
Pinned
Mahmud Rahman
@mahmudwriter.bsky.social
· Oct 25
A visit to my father's village in Bangladesh gave me the chance to confront my father's legacy and reflect on what home has come to mean to me. I wrote an essay about this that was just published in the Washington Square Review.
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month.
This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!
Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!
Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
December 3, 2025 at 10:18 PM
NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month.
This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!
Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!
Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
My memoir-essay on growing up with Norman Rockwell Thanksgivings is up in Vogue this morning. Here’s a small extract: www.vogue.com/article/norm...
November 27, 2025 at 12:29 PM
My memoir-essay on growing up with Norman Rockwell Thanksgivings is up in Vogue this morning. Here’s a small extract: www.vogue.com/article/norm...
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
😔 I loved the songs and the film. Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican reggae singer, actor and cultural icon, dies aged 81
Star of The Harder They Come had hits including You Can Get It If You Really Want and I Can See Clearly Now
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:27 PM
😔 I loved the songs and the film. Thank you, Jimmy.
More than 20 years ago, after some family deaths, I visited Bangladesh and took a trip to our father's village home. Before we left, I learned something awful in his history as a colonial policeman. The visit gave me the chance to confront his legacy and reflect on what home has come to mean to me.
Embark contributor @mahmudwriter.bsky.social has had an essay called "Bari Koi?—Where Is Home?" published in Washington Square Review. Read it here! www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
Mahmud Rahman — Washington Square Review
Issue 54 Fall 2025
www.washingtonsquarereview.com
November 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM
More than 20 years ago, after some family deaths, I visited Bangladesh and took a trip to our father's village home. Before we left, I learned something awful in his history as a colonial policeman. The visit gave me the chance to confront his legacy and reflect on what home has come to mean to me.
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
"There are only so many selfies, photos of my dog, and funny-shaped carpet stains I can share before I come off as a shallow, boring influencer. So, I decided to post an image in my dump of a book a roommate left behind—The Picture of Dorian Gray."
I Started Reading Performatively, and Turns Out Books Are Pretty Good
It all started when Instagram introduced the twenty-slide photo dumps. Trying to post the correct ratio of photos to memes to appear both off-the-g...
buff.ly
November 2, 2025 at 2:30 PM
"There are only so many selfies, photos of my dog, and funny-shaped carpet stains I can share before I come off as a shallow, boring influencer. So, I decided to post an image in my dump of a book a roommate left behind—The Picture of Dorian Gray."
A visit to my father's village in Bangladesh gave me the chance to confront my father's legacy and reflect on what home has come to mean to me. I wrote an essay about this that was just published in the Washington Square Review.
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
October 25, 2025 at 4:10 PM
A visit to my father's village in Bangladesh gave me the chance to confront my father's legacy and reflect on what home has come to mean to me. I wrote an essay about this that was just published in the Washington Square Review.
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
It's mechanical Turks all the way down
What goes on beneath the shine of AI, an army of raters and super raters working in isolation, without job security, facing the worst ills of the industrial economy: speedup, lack of quality control, and no doubt, in the future, replacement by new AI.
"“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said @adiod.bsky.social , a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. “These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
September 27, 2025 at 12:43 PM
It's mechanical Turks all the way down
What goes on beneath the shine of AI, an army of raters and super raters working in isolation, without job security, facing the worst ills of the industrial economy: speedup, lack of quality control, and no doubt, in the future, replacement by new AI.
"“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said @adiod.bsky.social , a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. “These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
How thousands of ‘overworked, underpaid’ humans train Google’s AI to seem smart
Contracted AI raters describe grueling deadlines, poor pay and opacity around work to make chatbots intelligent
www.theguardian.com
September 27, 2025 at 11:56 AM
What goes on beneath the shine of AI, an army of raters and super raters working in isolation, without job security, facing the worst ills of the industrial economy: speedup, lack of quality control, and no doubt, in the future, replacement by new AI.
Is the third boom really over? Just as South Asian translations, long underrepresented here, were beginning to show up in a slight uptick? Did we miss the bus? Is the new isolationist U.S. culture in the making responsible for the downturn?
New at PB: Jed Kudrick & @sdileonardi.bsky.social scour bestseller data to unpack trending translation in the US, despite the low national average of translations published each year.
How Translations Sell: Three U.S. Eras of International Bestsellers
A translation renaissance in US publishing just ended. And you probably missed it.
www.publicbooks.org
September 20, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Is the third boom really over? Just as South Asian translations, long underrepresented here, were beginning to show up in a slight uptick? Did we miss the bus? Is the new isolationist U.S. culture in the making responsible for the downturn?
"The more fundamental problem, though, is that both diplomats and development workers refused to engage with South Sudan as it actually existed, rather than the place they wished it to be."
Joshua Craze @joshuacraze.bsky.social on how the West tried to copy and paste a liberal state in South Sudan
South Sudan’s Democratic Mirage | Joshua Craze
The billions of dollars that the West has poured into the country have not made it richer or more peaceful, but they have enabled a dictatorship.
buff.ly
September 11, 2025 at 1:25 PM
"The more fundamental problem, though, is that both diplomats and development workers refused to engage with South Sudan as it actually existed, rather than the place they wished it to be."
"On the surface, there is the drama and emotion of Leman’s story. Underneath, there is literal subtext concerning philosophy, literature, history and more. It is to Ypi’s credit that none of this is really signposted; the reader is free to dig as deep as they like, or not."
After a photo of her grandmother sparked vicious trolling, @leaypi.bsky.social took a remarkable journey through Albania’s state archives.
Peter Hoskin speaks to the political thinker about dignity, memory and the stories we tell about the dead:
Peter Hoskin speaks to the political thinker about dignity, memory and the stories we tell about the dead:
Lea Ypi goes in search of lost dignity
After an image of her grandmother triggered an online firestorm, the political philosopher sought answers in Albania’s state archives. She tells us wh...
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk
September 11, 2025 at 12:09 PM
"On the surface, there is the drama and emotion of Leman’s story. Underneath, there is literal subtext concerning philosophy, literature, history and more. It is to Ypi’s credit that none of this is really signposted; the reader is free to dig as deep as they like, or not."
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
If you're an author and haven't yet signed up for the Anthropic settlement, do yourself a favor (and strike a blow against AI) by checking to see if any of your books were involved.
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
September 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
If you're an author and haven't yet signed up for the Anthropic settlement, do yourself a favor (and strike a blow against AI) by checking to see if any of your books were involved.
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
The University of Chicago has been invaded by Daleks! Read all about it 👇
My op-ed in the @chicagomaroon.bsky.social on the University of Chicago’s appalling plans to gut the humanities and possibly eliminate the South Asian studies department chicagomaroon.com/48353/viewpo...
Lost in Extraterrestrial Translation
The University celebrates the success of area studies alumni, all the while erasing the programs that made those careers possible.
chicagomaroon.com
August 30, 2025 at 9:39 PM
The University of Chicago has been invaded by Daleks! Read all about it 👇
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
Twenty years ago today, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. At approximately 5:00 AM, the levees broke, flooding 80% of our city. As a result, an estimated 1400 people lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. Over half of the victims were Black.
August 29, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Twenty years ago today, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans. At approximately 5:00 AM, the levees broke, flooding 80% of our city. As a result, an estimated 1400 people lost their lives, and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. Over half of the victims were Black.
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
An excerpt from my new novel, Alice Sees Ghosts in @scroll.in.web.brid.gy ! scroll.in/article/1085...
Daisy Rockwell’s new novel: Alice’s ancestral home is crumbling, and a spectre is haunting her
An excerpt from ‘Alice Sees Ghosts’.
scroll.in
August 27, 2025 at 10:14 AM
An excerpt from my new novel, Alice Sees Ghosts in @scroll.in.web.brid.gy ! scroll.in/article/1085...
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
Here is an overview of the mentorship genres we have on offer for 2026. For the upcoming year, we will be introducing an exciting new genre, Oral History. Stay tuned for more!
🚨Applications for 2026 open on September 1, 2025 and the deadline is September 30, 2025.
Website link in bio. 🔗
🚨Applications for 2026 open on September 1, 2025 and the deadline is September 30, 2025.
Website link in bio. 🔗
August 14, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Here is an overview of the mentorship genres we have on offer for 2026. For the upcoming year, we will be introducing an exciting new genre, Oral History. Stay tuned for more!
🚨Applications for 2026 open on September 1, 2025 and the deadline is September 30, 2025.
Website link in bio. 🔗
🚨Applications for 2026 open on September 1, 2025 and the deadline is September 30, 2025.
Website link in bio. 🔗
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
Here is a little about our application process, including some key dates. Mark your calendars and polish your applications and writing samples—we're looking forward to hearing from you.
🚨Applications open on September 1, 2025.
Website link in bio.🔗
#SouthAsiaSpeaks
🚨Applications open on September 1, 2025.
Website link in bio.🔗
#SouthAsiaSpeaks
August 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Here is a little about our application process, including some key dates. Mark your calendars and polish your applications and writing samples—we're looking forward to hearing from you.
🚨Applications open on September 1, 2025.
Website link in bio.🔗
#SouthAsiaSpeaks
🚨Applications open on September 1, 2025.
Website link in bio.🔗
#SouthAsiaSpeaks
"In a tour de force that combines history, memoir, and literary rumination, he explores how Lahore has been made and remade through violence, migration, politics, its diverse communities, and the ebbs and flows of time."
August 24, 2025 at 2:08 PM
"In a tour de force that combines history, memoir, and literary rumination, he explores how Lahore has been made and remade through violence, migration, politics, its diverse communities, and the ebbs and flows of time."
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
The ambitious Shabdakalpa project, launching in 2028, aims to map the history of every Bengali word in digital form, preserving cultural memory and inspiring future Southasian language initiatives.
Ankush Pal writes:
Ankush Pal writes:
The making of Shabdakalpa, a pioneering historical dictionary of Bengali
IT WAS A MUGGY Kolkata afternoon in 2017 when the first lines of code for Shabdakalpa were carefully entered into a lab computer at Jadavpur University in West
buff.ly
August 24, 2025 at 12:45 PM
The ambitious Shabdakalpa project, launching in 2028, aims to map the history of every Bengali word in digital form, preserving cultural memory and inspiring future Southasian language initiatives.
Ankush Pal writes:
Ankush Pal writes:
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
When you tell your grandchildren (or your friends’ grandchildren if you choose not to have a kid) the story of how we overcame this regime, tell them when the fascists came they didn’t come for the guns…they came for the arts.
I am re-reading Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, feeling grateful that she got an NEA Creative Writing fellowship to create this excellent novel. Now comes the news that the agency will no longer support such grants. Our culture is diminished when grants like this end. More $ to go for the iron fist.
August 23, 2025 at 3:11 PM
When you tell your grandchildren (or your friends’ grandchildren if you choose not to have a kid) the story of how we overcame this regime, tell them when the fascists came they didn’t come for the guns…they came for the arts.
I am re-reading Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, feeling grateful that she got an NEA Creative Writing fellowship to create this excellent novel. Now comes the news that the agency will no longer support such grants. Our culture is diminished when grants like this end. More $ to go for the iron fist.
August 23, 2025 at 1:34 PM
I am re-reading Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, feeling grateful that she got an NEA Creative Writing fellowship to create this excellent novel. Now comes the news that the agency will no longer support such grants. Our culture is diminished when grants like this end. More $ to go for the iron fist.
"BY BRINGING CENTURIES of writing together in one place, Shabdakalpa will offer unprecedented access to the cultural memory of the Bengali language." www.himalmag.com/culture/shab...
The making of Shabdakalpa, a pioneering historical dictionary of Bengali
IT WAS A MUGGY Kolkata afternoon in 2017 when the first lines of code for Shabdakalpa were carefully entered into a lab computer at Jadavpur University in West
www.himalmag.com
August 22, 2025 at 11:24 AM
"BY BRINGING CENTURIES of writing together in one place, Shabdakalpa will offer unprecedented access to the cultural memory of the Bengali language." www.himalmag.com/culture/shab...
New story translation from Shabnam Nadiya who's impressive in discovering writers from Bangladesh who she wants to translate into English. Check it out, this is a lovely, contemporary story. wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
Suraiya - Words Without Borders
Two young people in a Turkish class find their love language in this short story by Shibabrata Barman.
wordswithoutborders.org
July 28, 2025 at 2:45 PM
New story translation from Shabnam Nadiya who's impressive in discovering writers from Bangladesh who she wants to translate into English. Check it out, this is a lovely, contemporary story. wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
Reposted by Mahmud Rahman
Narendra Pachkhédé on C.M. Naim who "refused both the nostalgia of the diaspora and the sentimentality of cultural nationalism. His was a critical love – tender, exacting, and utterly unsentimental."
C. M. Naim and the Many Lives of Urdu
He stood, ultimately, for what might be called the aesthetics of ethical clarity. His writing was never merely beautiful, it was responsible.
thewire.in
July 11, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Narendra Pachkhédé on C.M. Naim who "refused both the nostalgia of the diaspora and the sentimentality of cultural nationalism. His was a critical love – tender, exacting, and utterly unsentimental."