Ro Mehrooz

Ro Mehrooz is a young Rohingya poet, translator, and award-winning photographer. Born in late 1999, he is originally from Arakan (now Rakhine State) in Myanmar. Growing up under the oppression of the Burmese regime, he fled the country at the age of sixteen to avoid arbitrary arrest. He began writing in early 2016, primarily in Rohingya, exploring themes of longing for his homeland and the harsh conditions faced by his community. His poems were first published in 2019 in I Am a Rohingya: Poetry from the Camps and Beyond (Arc Publications, 2019), along with various other anthologies and magazines. His debut collection, Poems Written Through Barbed-Wire Fences, was published by Arc Publications in 2024. He is also the founder of Fod, a website dedicated to preserving and promoting Rohingya poetry. In 2023, one of his photographs was featured in the British Museum’s exhibition Burma to Myanmar.