Anisur Rahman, the first official ICORN Guest Writer in Uppsala, is a poet, playwright, literary critic, essayist, novelist, translator and journalist from Bangladesh.
Anisur Rahman writes for newspapers in Bangladesh, Sweden and elsewhere alongside participating in debate and literary programmes on various occasions in Uppsala and other cities. He is a member of the Swedish Writers' Union, the Swedish Foreign Press Association, Writers' Centre in Stockholm and is an honorary member of Swedish PEN. Born in Madhupur, Tangail, Bangladesh in 1978, Anisur Rahman studied English Literature and Linguistics alongside Bengali and History at the University of Dhaka. He has published two collections of poems in Bengali and another in English. He translates poems and plays from English to Bengali and from Bengali to English. His translation of Henrik Ibsen's poems in Bengali was published in 2006. His Bengali novel Oi Andhakar Ase (The Dark Sounds) appeared in April 2009. Rahman's collection of poems is being translated to Swedish to be published later this year. He scripted two plays - Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Ibsen's The Lady from the Sea in Bengali. His latest publication is The Absent Poet and Other Essays - a collection of 40 essays on aesthetic traditions and socio-cultural aspects of Bengali poetry and plays. He has visited India, France, Mexico, Sweden and the UK on invitation to different international literary conferences and festivals. He lectured on perspectives of translating poetry and Henrik Ibsen as a poet at the Universidad del Claustro da Sor Juana in Mexico City in 2006. In 2008, he participated in the Writers and Literary Translators International Congress in Stockholm, where he presented a paper on "The Importance of Mother Tongue - The spirit of International Mother Language Day".
Photo: Fredrik Haglund
