Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar

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Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar (1846 -1903) considered the first novelists of India in Urdu and editor of the Lucknow newspaper Avadh Akhbar.

His serialized novel Fasana-e Azad (The Tale of Azad), which appeared between 1878 and 1885 as a serialized supplement in his paper, was influenced by novels like The Pickwick Papers and Don Quixote, as well as the great epic romances (dastan) of Persian and Urdu. It followed the adventures of the hero through the streets of Lucknow to the battlefields of the Turko-Russian War.

He died in Hyderabad under mysterious circumstances.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/published/txt_sarshar.html