Born in Dhaka, what was then East Pakistan. Lived on Mymensingh Road, witness to the motorcades of royalty and dictators, to the passing of horse carriages in favor of buses and auto rickshaws, and to the alternating cycles of mass demonstrations and military curfews and gunfire. Schooled - with conflict - by Catholic missionaries from the American Midwest. Active in the movement for the liberation of Bangladesh. Refugee in India during 1971 war. Adult life in the U.S. shaped by the background of racial violence in the Boston of the 70s and the collapse of industry in the Detroit of the 80s. A writer over decades, devoted to fiction since the mid-90s.
In May 2004, I graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College in Oakland, California.

I recently completed Killing the water: stories. It includes ten stories about war and migration – two of the most compelling developments of our times – linked through the metaphor of water as the agency of escape, life, death, and reflection. They are set in such places as an interrogation room and a remote island on the coast of Bangladesh, a blues club in Detroit, and a Dominican laundromat in Providence. The characters in these stories seek the meaning of bravery and commitment, ponder personal responsibility and family ties, and search for connection and love in the midst of war and chaos “back home” and ethnic tension in urban America.

While trying to get the collection published, I have moved on to a novel set in contemporary Bangladesh.