Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

Dareechah-e-Nigaarish
Toronto, ON
Canada
talat.afroze@dareechah.com

Urdu Fiction Writers

My web site Dareechah is primarily about modern Urdu poetry. At the same time, my view is that the modern Pakistani poet needs to be extremely well read. I feel strongly that Pakistani poets cannot ignore important, seminal works of creative prose.

This page is placed in my Urdu poetry web site in order to help and guide young Pakistani poets in finding and learning from some key works of Urdu fiction.

Here are the names of some of the great Urdu fiction writers that the Indo Pakistan sub-continent has produced. These names are in random order :

Dr. Rasheed Jahan

was one of the earliest Muslim Women Urdu fiction writers of British ruled India of the 1930s... she helped launch the Progressive Writers Movement along with three other writers viz. Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali and Mahmuduzzafar by contributing her short stories to the 1932 Urdu short story collection "Angaarey" . . . this collection represents a break from the strong conservative, anti-modern tradition dominating early Urdu fiction... the stories in Angaarey represented a manifesto for the Urdu Progressive Writers' Movement which caused an uproar among the "accepted" or conventional/conservative literati ... this movement rapidly became the dominant force on the landscape of British India, helped spur the movement for Independence from British colonial rule and influenced the young generation of Indians who were living in the 1930s and 1940s to be inspired by a modern sensibility and a realist's approach to Life in general... Rasheed Jahan is considered the mentor of Ismat Chughtai as well as Faiz Ahmed Faiz...