Khondakar Ashraf Hossain (Bengali: খোন্দকার আশরাফ হোসেন; 4 January 1950 – 16 June 2013) was a leading postmodernist[1] poet, essayist, translator, and editor from Bangladesh.

[2][3] Hossain was born on 4 January 1950 to a Bengali Muslim family of Khondakars in the village of Joynagar in Sarishabari, Jamalpur, then part of the Mymensingh District of East Bengal (now Bangladesh).

[5] His doctoral thesis is entitled Modernism and Beyond: Western Influence on Bangladeshi Poetry,[6] which he defended under Dr. Syed Manzoorul Islam, another doyen and celebrated writer in the department.

[4] In his decades-long teaching career, he was immensely popular among his students for his unique lectures delivered with ready wit and remarkable quips.

[14] Expressiveness and eloquence in his poetry came from his successful, spontaneous combination of national and world heritage and mythology with his personal experience and feelings.

[17] He explored not only the contemporary social and political condition of his country but also "the grounds of existential philosophy in conceiving human life as fragile yet undying, as self-destructive yet eternal".