Her family is originally from the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan but her father and his relatives lost their land and livelihood when the huge Tarbela Dam was built. Her family moved to the United States, returning briefly and unsuccessfully to Pakistan when Rehman was in her teens.

Bushra Rehman’s mother says Bushra was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn. Her father is not so sure. Since there are no definitive records of the time of her birth, there is no real way of knowing, but it would explain a few things. Bushra was a vagabond poet who traveled for years with nothing more than a greyhound ticket and a book bag full of poems.

Bushra Rehman’s first novel Corona, a dark comedy about being South Asian in the United States, was noted among Poets & Writers Best Debut Fiction and featured in the LA Review of Books among a new wave of South Asian American Literature. Rehman also co-edited the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism which was included in Ms. Magazine’s “100 Best Non-Fiction Books of All Time.” Her writing has been featured in numerous anthologies and journals. She has taught creative writing for over 15 years at organizations including Teacher & Writers Collaborative, Urban Word NYC and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.