Ahmed Ali (1910 in New Delhi – 14 January 1994 in Karachi)(Urdu: احمد علی ) was an Indian (later Pakistani) novelist, poet, critic, translator, diplomat and scholar, who was responsible for writing Twilight in Delhi. Born in Delhi, India, he was involved in progressive literary movements as a young man. Professor Ahmed Ali was educated at Aligarh and Lucknow universities, standing first-class and first in the order of merit in both B.A. (Honours), 1930 and M.A. English, 1931. He taught at leading Indian universities including Lucknow and Allahabad from 1932–46 and joined the Bengal Senior Educational Service as professor and head of the English Department at Presidency College, Calcutta (1944–47). Ali was the BBC's Representative and Director in India during 1942–44. During partition, he was the British Council Visiting Professor to the University of China in Nanking as appointed by the British government of India. When he tried to return to India after partition in 1948, K.P.S Menon (then India's Ambassador to China) did not let him and he was forced to move to Pakistan. [1]
Therefore he moved to Karachi in 1948, a city that he was never fond of. [2] Later, he was appointed Director of Foreign Publicity, Government of Pakistan. At the behest of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan, he joined the Pakistan Foreign Service in 1950. The first file he received was marked 'China' and when he opened it; it was blank. He went to China as Pakistan's first envoy and established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic in 1951.
Contents |
Ahmed Ali started his literary career at a young age and became cofounder of the All-India Progressive Writers' Movement and Association with the publication of Angare in 1932, a collection of short stories by four young friends, which was later banned by the British Government of India in March 1933. Shortly afterward Ali and Mahmud-uz-Zaffar announced the formation of a "League of Progressive Authors", which was later to expand and become the All-India Progressive Writers' Association.[3] Ali presented his paper "Art ka Taraqqi-Pasand Nazariya" (A Progressive View of Art) in its inaugural Conference in 1936. A pioneer of the modem Urdu short story, Ali's works include collections of short stories: "Angare" (Flames), 1934; Hamari Gali (Our Lane), 1940; Qaid Khana (The Prison-house), 1942; and Maut Se Pehle (Before Death), 1945.
Ahmed Ali achieved international fame with his novel Twilight in Delhi, which was first published by The Hogarth Press in London in 1940.[4]
Ali was a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Humanities at Michigan State University in 1975, Fulbright Visiting Professor of History at Western Kentucky University and Fulbright Visiting Professor of English at Southern Illinois University in 1978–79.
He was made an Honorary Citizen by the State of Nebraska in 1979. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Karachi during 1977–79, which later conferred on him an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature in 1993.
During the 1950s Ahmed Ali worked for the Pakistan Foreign Service, establishing embassies in Morocco and China.[5]