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…
Khalid Hasan, the one-time compatriot and Press Secretary to Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and journalist par excellence is well known for his literary writings. For years the life and times of Madame Noor Jehan have been celebrated in his writings. He has translated several titans of Urdu literature including Manto, Abbas, and Faiz…
Rajinder Singh Bedi (19151984) began his working life as a postal clerk but soon carved a place for himself in the canon of modern Urdu short stories with his very first collection, DanaoDam, published in 1940. Details of everyday life, no matter how small, found a place in his stories and became reflections of a larger social reality…