Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
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Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (born 1935) is an eminent Urdu critic, poet and theorist, who has nurtured a whole generation of Urdu writers since the 1960s. He is regarded as the founder of the new movement in Urdu literature and has formulated fresh models of literary appreciation. With rare skill and clarity, he absorbed western principles of literary criticism and subsequently applied them to Urdu literature, but only after adapting them to address literary aesthetics native to Arabic, Persian, and Urdu.
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[edit] A brief profile
[edit] Education
MA in English from Allahabad University in 1955.
[edit] Career
He worked as a civil servant in the Indian Postal Department from 1960-1968 and later became Chief Postmaster-General and Member, Postal Services Board, New Delhi until 1994. As of 2007 he is a full-time writer and editor of his literary magazine Shabkhoon and a part-time professor at the South Asia Regional Studies Centre, University of Pennsylvania, USA. He permanently resides at Allahabad, a prominent city in State of Uttar Pradesh in India.
[edit] Publications
- Sher, Ghair Sher, Aur Nasr (1973)
- The Secret Mirror (in English, 1981)
- Ghalib Afsaney Ki Himayat Mein (1989)
- Sher Shore Angez (in 3 volumes, 1991-93)
- Urdu Ka Ibtedai Zamana (2001)
- Ganj-i-Sokhta (poetry)
- Sawar Aur Doosray Afsanay (fiction)
- Kai chand thay sar-e asman (novel)
- Jadeediyat Kal Aur Aaj (2007)
[edit] Influence
An expert in classical prosody and ‘ilm-e bayan (the science of poetic discourse), he has contributed to modern literary discourse with a profundity rarely seen in contemporary Urdu critics.
He is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. Most recently he was awarded the prestigious Saraswathi Samman for his pioneering work She`r-e Shor-Angez. In this four-volume study of the great eighteenth-century poet Mir Taqi Mir, Faruqi uses a refreshingly eclectic approach and a variety of insightful critical tools to interpret Mir’s art.
