I grew up in Jahangirnagar University, a college campus in Bangladesh. It had red brick roads, green glass lakes, and soaring acacia, jackfruit, mango and shaal trees. I love Jahangirnagar about as much as I love the craziness of my rickshaw-car-truck-bus-three wheeler traffic-mess Dhaka; both places will always be home no matter how far I run.

Over a decade ago I moved to Iowa City as an older student to spend three amazing years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. So now I have two graduate degrees: an MA in English literature from Dhaka University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. And then there was Northern California for a minute. More places where I’ve left pieces of my heart. Right now, I’m in the process of giving Philadelphia a big piece of myself, this city of vibrant murals and narrow streets and open hearts and quirky history at every turn.

All these phases of my life have defined and transformed who I am as a writer and translator in such distinct ways; I’m grateful to all the places I’ve called home. I dreamt of being a writer in Jahangirnagar, I began my serious explorations into writing and translating in Dhaka, and since then, it’s been years and years of looking for a destination until I figured out what I knew all along: if you look too hard at the destination, you’re likely to miss the diamonds of sunlight on a creek, the swoop of a falcon, the tawny mountains like sleeping lions, and the riot of clover and lupines by the side of the road.

These pages showcase some of what I’ve been working on. Stop here, stay awhile, visit with me. And I’d love to see you again.