![]() The same short story was included in 'Angare' when it was published later the same year.īy the time Ahmed Ali began writing, Urdu prose was submerged in romanticism, subjectivity and aestheticism. “Mahavaton ki aik raat', or a night of winter rains, was his first Urdu short story which, according to Dr Farman Fatehpuri, was published in Humayun's annual issue in January 1932. His first English short story was published in 1928 in Lucknow University's magazine. He began writing in English and got published his first English poem titled 'The lake of dreams' in 1926 (when he was 16), in an Aligarh magazine. He served as a visiting professor in China for about two years and then joined Pakistan's foreign service, where he worked till 1960. īorn on July 1, 1910, in Delhi, Ahmed Ali did his Master's in English from Lucknow University in 1931 and taught at the Lucknow and Allahabad universities and Presidency College, Calcutta (now Kolkata), between 19. One of the most significant contributions of Ahmed Ali's was his role in the formation of the Progressive Writers' Association (PWA) in 1936, with he being one of the founders who conceived the PWA's basic idea and its manifesto, though he later developed differences with other comrades of his and distanced himself from the movement and association. The others who contributed to it were his Marxist friends Sajjad Zaheer, Rasheed Jahan and Mahmood-uz-Zafar. The book, seen by many as a harbinger of the progressive literary movement in the subcontinent, consisted of 10 short stories. ![]() ![]() Though he wrote many more short stories, novels and other books, the fame, or notoriety, he gained through the publication of 'Angare', kept haunting him throughout his life and even today his name invokes strong association with 'Angare'. He continued writing in both languages till he died, when his fame had already crossed over the borders of the subcontinent.Īhmed Ali shot to fame in 1932 with the publication of 'Angare' (or embers), a fiery collection of Urdu short stories that, true to its name, ignited a fire of anger throughout the conservative society of India that viewed the collection as obscene, blasphemous and a challenge to the moral codes and traditional norms of society. In both stories, ordinary human beings are made unwitting perpetrators of crimes, fighting a war of which they have little understanding.A scholar, short-story writer, novelist, critic and translator, Prof Ahmed Ali is one of those few writers who have written both in Urdu and English. These writings also elicit the reader’s shocked response to the absurdity of partition which forced people to choose nations when they had no idea why such choices were important, or even, how to choose. These works of fiction satirize the act of partition and showcase caricatures of the people who planned and paved the way for the implausible splitting of a community. The essay reads the two works as a depiction of absurdity and madness on the part of the executioners of the partition and portrays its dark and inhumane side. This study explores the absurdity and incongruity of partition through two short stories Toba Tek Singh and The Dog of Tithwal by Saadat Hasan Manto. The partition of the Indian subcontinent was an iniquitous act that created a humanitarian crisis at a very large scale and led to the perpetual division of people along seemingly irreconcilable communal lines.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |