Al Mahmud: Poet of Sonali Kabin

Al Mahmud (1936–2019), born Mir Abdus Shukur Al Mahmud in Brahmanbaria, was the poet of Sonali Kabin — a Language Movement schoolboy who became an editor, a prisoner, an academy director, and the most debated Bengali poet of his generation. This profile follows the whole arc, from the 1952 leaflet that brought him an arrest warrant to the posthumous Independence Award of 2025.