Mustafa Samdani

Mustafa Samdani was born and raised in Pakistan in the mystical tradition of Islam known as Sufism. In 2006 he completed a Master’s degree in Performance Studies from Brown University where his work focused on religion, ritual, and theatre. Currently, he works as an Urdu-English translator for terrorism and South Asia expert, Dr. Christine Fair (Georgetown University), producing book-length translations of militant propaganda published by some of Pakistan’s deadliest terrorist organizations. Dr. Fair and Samdani have book contracts for their collaborative work with Hurst Publishers (London) and Oxford University Press India. Samdani divides his time between Cambridge MA and the mountains of Swat, Pakistan where he is rebuilding his family’s Sufi ashram, destroyed in 2007 by the Taliban. He is working on his debut novel, and is half done with his second volume of poetry in the same format as blood-letting.