All Passion Spent was launched recently in New Delhi by Zubaan in the author’s presence. The exchange with the author that followed was thought provoking and moving, not least because Zaheda Hina chose to speak in Urdu/ Hindustani in response to questions, after a brief reading from the novel…
The All India Progressive Writers Movement (AIPWM) has been one of most dominant, indigenous, 20th century countrywide movements taking in its sweep most writers of vernacular literature. Initiated in British India, it has the distinction of being the only literary movement aimed at propagating political, Marxist socialist principles…
Zahida Zaidi was a poet, dramatist, translator and critic whose literary contributions belong to the realms of both Urdu and English literatures. She was a prolific writer passionately concerned with the pulse of the times so one comes across varied political, cultural and social themes in her work. She was innovative too in her use of various literary forms…
I run my hand over this large volume with a pictorial cover of a brown prison wall, pierced diagonally with barbed wire, a patch of a sky, a few forlorn trees standing behind parallel search lights and a sentry standing erect before a guard room. Inside the volume is the story of two loves; Faiz Ahmed Faizs letters written…
These two books have titles that sound deceptively similar. While their common theme is indeed the problem of poverty in developing countries, no two books can be more radically different in the basic approach in defining the nature of the problem and the possible directions in which policy-makers in these countries can seek a solution.
The five almost undisputed leaders of modern Urdu poetry, chronologically by year of their of birth, are N.M. Rashid (1910-1975), Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984), Meeraji (1912-1949), Majeed Amjad (1914-1974) and Akhtarul Iman (1915-1996). Of these poets, only Faiz belonged and remained loyal to the Progressive Writers Movement until his death…