This is depressing. But grateful for people like @sandeepbak.bsky.social who create space for dialogue and solidarity, which keep hope alive.

I’ve been writing over on Substack recently, here’s the link substack.com/@nasiasarwar...

I’m trying to educate myself about the political dynamics in Iran. But one thing I know is that liberation will not come via the west.

I’ve been thinking a lot about decolonial ethics and how it is not identity-based, but practice-based. And how shared racialisation does not equal shared ethics, accountability, or methodology.

Pleased to say last week I passed my PhD Viva with minor corrections.

I look forward to getting my hands on a copy!

To flatten South Asia into one story is a colonial impulse disguised as empathy. The universal ‘female body’ and its easy ‘we’ erase class, caste, and difference, turning complexity into aesthetic comfort. Writers need to do better than this.

‘Recognition’ of Palestine is simply colonial theatre. Palestine is a nation long occupied not ‘invented’ by imperial signatures. Anti-colonial solidarity means standing with a people whose sovereignty lives beyond Western permission. #FreePalestine #Decolonise

White-on-white gun crime seems to be a big problem in the US.

On my way home from a super interesting talk by @arifa.bsky.social about her book Wolf Moon which is brilliantly researched with so many passages that have stayed with me long after reading it.

Colonialism’s most insidious weapon is linguistic erasure; violent severing of communities from their epistemologies, oral histories, and cosmologies. Decolonising lang is not mere translation; it’s the radical reactivation of suppressed worldviews & refusal to think in the grammar of the coloniser.

Seeing a lot of “you’re so brave for speaking about Palestine.” Brave are the journalists reporting genocide. Brave are Gaza’s children & men risking their lives to find food. Brave are the mothers holding what’s left of their homes. Standing with Palestine isn’t bravery, it’s basic humanity.

Absolutely. We need to decolonise decolonisation itself and interrogate the frameworks, the gatekeeping, and who gets to speak for the South.

After 10 years of bold, brilliant work, 404 Ink is closing its doors. A small press that always played big, fearless, sharp, & committed to its authors. I’m so grateful they gave Gathering a home. Brilliant work by Heather & Laura looked after their authors with such care. Thanks for everything.

Delighted to have two pieces of work exhibited at Manchester Museum until 31 August. I am also running a series of writing workshops around material memory. Check out MM’s website for further details. www.museum.manchester.ac.uk/event/khawaa...

So well deserved, especially because of the work by curator Nusrat Ahmed for South Asia Gallery.

This is such joyful news!

The "Chowk" column at Lakeer is open for submissions throughout the year. The theme for 2025 is "Borders/Boundaries – سرحدیں/حدود". Submit your poetry, essays, art and photography to [email protected]. lakeermag.com/chowk2025

Postcolonialism has quietly morphed into neocolonialism, visible in climate imperialism, where the Global South bears the brunt of extraction for the Global North’s ‘green’ futures. From carbon offsets to conservation dispossession, and of course Palestine. Colonial logics persist under new guises.

Similarly, when institutions claim to operate within a ‘decolonial’ framework but fail to shift power, resources, or authorship, it becomes a performative exercise. Decolonisation and representation isn’t branding, it’s structural, material, and deeply uncomfortable work.

Ever collaborated on something, only for the other person to later act like it was solely their work and attempt to erase your input to claim full authority? Would love to hear how others have dealt with this.

I have been enjoying this very much.

Thinking about terms we use & how decolonised has become a label. Nothing is truly decolonised while neocolonial power still shapes our world. To declare a practice or institution decolonised is to betray the unfinished nature of decolonial struggle. The term is a comfortable lie. #coloniality

There are a thousand ways to stand with Palestine. Silence is not one of them. Decoloniality without solidarity is just branding.

1. Because this issue is critical, but has received remarkably little coverage, here's a thread pulling out the key themes from my article yesterday, on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which puts decades of environmental protections to the torch. 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Can’t wait to get my hands on this.

Publishing the nationalities of offenders is about reinforcing racialised hierarchies. It echoes neocolonial practices where ‘the other’ is pathologised to justify control, exclusion, and the illusion of moral superiority.

Klaxon-not all gloom. Our brand new inter-uni seminar titled 'Undiscipline, Decolonise, Repair' kicks off 2nd May: Paris Book Launch of Alana Lentin's The New Racial Regime. Online speaker series next. Coordinators at various stages of career. Cast an eye. undisciplinedecoloniserepair.wordpress.com

This is neocolonial logic in action— benefiting from Afghan women's resistance narratives to uphold liberal democratic optics, only to discard them when inconvenient. It reveals the deep hypocrisy of asylum systems shaped by imperial logics of disposability. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’m interested in how decolonial writing not only resists empire in content but also ways in which it can unsettle the architecture of language itself. What happens when we write from the borderlands and between rupture and rhythm?#decolonisecreativewriting #decolonialthoughts

Sign up now! Great opportunity. Please share :)

📆 One week left! We're looking for a passionate campaigner/journalist to join our team. Apply below 👇 goodlawproject.org/vacancy/jour...

Jhalak Prize longlists are out too:

It needs to be said loudly and clearly that the more a country aligns with the United States and its rampage of oppression across the globe, the less support it should get from humanity in terms of solidarity and economic custom. There are almost eight billion of us. We can win.

Lighthouse subs are open for poetry and prose storymachines.co.uk/portfolio/li...

This was a lovely evening. Affirming in many ways.

This event is about the #PhD by Published Works in Creative Writing - and at least one of my supervisors is now coming to tell you about entry requirements & all about how it works at York St John. We also have candidates on the trad route from Leicester and Swansea universities coming along!

Spiegelman & Sacco collaborated on this cartoon and it’s everything.

This careless and outlandish take by Dhume smacks of ignorance of the horror that was #partition

If you are interested in finding out more about a Creative Writing PhD, I’ll be talking about journey at this event. You can grab a ticket by following the link below.

Just found an edit note I left myself at stupid o’clock: ‘make this… better. But like, in a cool way.’ That’s super helpful. What’s the weirdest editing note you’ve left yourself?

Writing tip: If you’re stuck, write the worst possible version of your idea. Just absolutely ruin it. I find that sometimes, breaking it makes fixing it easier.

Site visit to South Asian Gallery @ Manchester Museum with head curator Nusrat Ahmed & Ways of Working team ahead of the new iteration of the Dream Palace and Absence Presence. Continuing our dialogue about decolonisation. #manchestermuseum #southasiangallery #cliveofindia #decolonial #wales

Best thing for me about the #Curae prize number number 48: it’s an unbelievable gift to receive the first piece of work that anyone has sent out ever. Sometimes, the first piece they’ve ever written. #carers thecuraeprize.uk Entries close 1st March: unpaid carers - this is just for YOU 💙📚

Timothée Chalamet shines as Bob Dylan in #ACompleteUnknown. Woody & Pete deserve a film of their own. However, the credits incorrectly claim Dylan is the only songwriter to win the Nobel Prize in Literature—Rabindranath Tagore, was awarded it in 1913.

Not sure if I have anything to pitch to it, but if u write first-person in particular, a friend recommends AFM, a new magazine by Feeld (yep the dating app): feeld.co/magazine/pla...

@jaydprosser.bsky.social today I was discussing Loving Strangers with my PhD supervisor and how it’s influencing my research—only to find out you supervised her PhD! This connection really enriched our discussion.

Did the name “Elon” come from an infamous Nazi? Also yes! 🧵