Urdu Literary Culture examines the impact of political circumstances on vernacular (Urdu) literary culture through an in-depth study of the writings of Muhammad Hasan Askari (1919-78), Urdu's first and finest literary critic. Askari's life was lived at the crossroads of early nation formation in South Asia-this study provides a detailed treatment of the intellectual world that Askari inhabited and complicates previously held notions about his life and work by looking at some of his writing through the lens of sexuality. Mehr Afshan Farooqi argues that Askari's work challenges the assumptions...

Ahmed Ali (1910-1994), multitalented, bilingual writer, poet, scholar, translator, critic, and anthologist, is one of the stalwarts in the South Asian literary sphere. A founder of the All India Progressive Writer's Association (AIPWA) and best-known for the classic portrait of Delhi, Twilight in Delhi (1940), Ali's life and work is informed by a tremendous idealism that inspired a whole generation of writers and intellectuals. As a literary figure, he epitomized a compelling cosmopolitan sensibility and opened up the South Asian literary sphere to the West, easily bridging East-West...

Urdu Literary Culture examines the impact of political circumstances on vernacular (Urdu) literary culture through an in-depth study of the writings of Muhammad Hasan Askari, who lived during the Partition of India.