Selective Reading By Intizar Husain

Our scholars, mostly those associated with Urdu and sitting in foreign universities, seem very keen to introduce Urdu literature to the readership in the West. With this aim in view they are often seen engaged in translating works of fiction and poetry from Urdu into English.

Foremost among such scholars is Prof Mohammad Umar Memon of Wisconsin University. He has translated many work of contemporary Urdu fiction, and has, to his credit, a number of such collections published in the US.

Apart from a number of collections of individual writers he also has to his credit miscellanies, like ‘The Tale of the Old Fisherman’ and ‘Domains of Fear and Desire’, which include selections from different contemporary short story writers of Urdu.

He also brings out every year a special issue of Urdu Studies, a journal published under the aegis of his university’s department of languages and cultures of Asia. Moazzam Sheikh, a resident of Canada, has brought out a collection of contemporary short stories of Pakistan under the title ‘A Letter from India’. Recently, Prof Asaduddin of Jamia Milliya compiled a collection of selected short stories, which has been published by Penguin under the title ‘The Penguin Book of Classic Urdu Stories’.