Qurratulain Hyder
Encyclopedia
Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider was an influential Urdu
novel
ist and short story
writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature
, she is most known for her magnum opus
, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post artition of India]. Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880–1943). Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894–1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published her first novel.
She received the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award
in Urdu
for Patjhar Ki Awaz (Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award
for Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar, and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi
, India's National Academy of Letters, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan
from the Government of India
in 2005.
, (though her family were from Nehtaur
, UP), Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder is one of the most celebrated of Urdu fiction writers. She was named after a notable Iranian poet Qurrat-ul-Ain Tahira. Qurratul Ain, translated literally means 'solace of the eyes' and is used as a term of endearment. A trend setter in Urdu fiction, she began writing at a time when the novel was yet to take deep roots as a serious genre in the poetry-oriented world of Urdu literature. She instilled in it a new sensibility and brought into its fold strands of thought and imagination hitherto unexplored. She is widely regarded as the "Grande Dame" of Urdu literature.
After graduating from Lucknow University's Isabella Thoburn College, she moved to Pakistan
in 1947, then lived in England
for some time before finally returning to India in 1960. She lived in Bombay for nearly twenty years before shifting to Noida
near New Delhi
, where she had been staying till her demise. She never married.
She migrated along with her family members to Pakistan in 1947 at the time of independence, but some years later decided to go back to India
, where she had since lived. She worked as a journalist to earn her living but kept publishing short stories, literary translations and novels regularly, by now almost thirty in number.She was Managing Editor of the magazine Imprint, Bombay (1964–68), and a member of the editorial staff of the Illustrated Weekly of India (1968–75). Her books have been translated into English and other languages
Hyder also served as a guest lecturer at the universities of California, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Arizona. She was visiting professor at the Urdu Department at Aligarh Muslim University
, where her father had earlier been a registrar. She was also Professor Emeritus, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Chair at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Aag Ka Duriya (River of Fire), her magnum opus, is a landmark novel that explores the vast sweep of time and history. It tells a story that moves from the fourth century BC to the post-Independence period in India and Pakistan, pausing at the many crucial epochs of history. Aamer Hussein in The Times Literary Supplement
wrote that River of Fire is to Urdu fiction what One Hundred Years of Solitude
is to Hispanic literature. Aag Ka Darya is essentially a novel written from the point of view of the believers of Pakistan and depicts their agony in detail, specially towards the climax of the novel.
Her other published works include: "Mere Bhi Sanam Khane", 1949; "Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil", 1952; Patjhar ki Awaz (The Voice of Autumn), 1965; Raushni ki Raftar (The Speed of Light), 1982; the short novel Chaye ke Bagh (Tea Plantations), 1965 (one of four novellas including Dilruba, Sita Haran, Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Na Kijo, exploring gender injustice) ; and the family chronicle Kar e Jahan Daraz Hai (The Work of the World Goes On).
Compared to her exact contemporaries, Milan Kundera
and Gabriel García Márquez
, the breadth of her literary canvas, her vision and insight, transcend time.
Amitav Ghosh
writes that "hers is one of the most important Indian voices of the twentieth century."
Her first short story, Bi-Chuhiya (Little Miss Mouse), was published in children’s magazine Phool and at the age of nineteen wrote her first novel "Mayray Bhee Sanam khanay".
in 1989 for her novel Aakhir-e-Shab ke Hamsafar (Travellers Unto the Night). She received the Sahitya Akademi Award
, in 1967, Soviet Land Nehru Award, 1969, Ghalib Award, 1985. She won Sahitya Akademi Award
for her collection of short stories Patjhar ki Awaz (The Sound of Falling Leaves) in 1967. The Urdu Academy in Delhi conferred upon her the Bahadur Shah Zafar Award in 2000. She was conferred Padma Shri
by the Government of India in 1984, and in 2005 she was conferred the Padma Bhushan
the third highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of India, for her contribution to Urdu Literature and Education.
hospital, near New Delhi
, India on August 21, 2007 after a protracted lung illness. She has been buried in the Jamia Millia Islamia
cemetery, New Delhi.
Her death has been condoled by the President and Prime Minister of India, and Chief Minister of her home state Uttar Pradesh
.
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist and short story
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature
Urdu literature
Urdu literature has a long and colorful history that is inextricably tied to the development of that very language, Urdu, in which it is written...
, she is most known for her magnum opus
Magnum opus
Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...
, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post artition of India]. Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880–1943). Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894–1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published her first novel.
She received the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
in Urdu
Sahitya Akademi Award to Urdu Writers
Sahitya Akademi Award is an annual literary honour, given since 1955, by Sahitya Akademi , to writers and their works, for their outstanding contribution to the upliftment of Indian literature. Urdu is one of 24 languages in which the award is given.:-Sahitya Akademi Award winners and their works...
for Patjhar Ki Awaz (Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
for Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar, and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi ', India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India...
, India's National Academy of Letters, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...
in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
from the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
in 2005.
Biography
Born on January 20, 1926 in Aligarh, Uttar PradeshUttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, (though her family were from Nehtaur
Nehtaur
Nehtaur or Nihtaur is a town in Bijnor district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.-History:Tazeem Saifi Afzalgarh Nehtaur is an ancient and well known town because of its culture and educational backgrounds...
, UP), Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder is one of the most celebrated of Urdu fiction writers. She was named after a notable Iranian poet Qurrat-ul-Ain Tahira. Qurratul Ain, translated literally means 'solace of the eyes' and is used as a term of endearment. A trend setter in Urdu fiction, she began writing at a time when the novel was yet to take deep roots as a serious genre in the poetry-oriented world of Urdu literature. She instilled in it a new sensibility and brought into its fold strands of thought and imagination hitherto unexplored. She is widely regarded as the "Grande Dame" of Urdu literature.
After graduating from Lucknow University's Isabella Thoburn College, she moved to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in 1947, then lived in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
for some time before finally returning to India in 1960. She lived in Bombay for nearly twenty years before shifting to Noida
Noida
Noida , short for the New Okhla Industrial Development Area, is an area in India under the management of the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority . Noida came into administrative existence on 17 April 1976 and celebrates 17 April as "Noida Day". It was set up as part of an urbanization...
near New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, where she had been staying till her demise. She never married.
She migrated along with her family members to Pakistan in 1947 at the time of independence, but some years later decided to go back to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where she had since lived. She worked as a journalist to earn her living but kept publishing short stories, literary translations and novels regularly, by now almost thirty in number.She was Managing Editor of the magazine Imprint, Bombay (1964–68), and a member of the editorial staff of the Illustrated Weekly of India (1968–75). Her books have been translated into English and other languages
Hyder also served as a guest lecturer at the universities of California, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Arizona. She was visiting professor at the Urdu Department at Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh Muslim University ,is a residential academic university, established in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as Mohammedan Angelo-Oriental College and later granted the status of Central University by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1920...
, where her father had earlier been a registrar. She was also Professor Emeritus, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan Chair at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
Literary works
A prolific writer (she began to write at the young age of 11), her literary works include some 12 novels and novellas and four collections of short stories. Hyder has also done a significant amount of translation of classics. Her own works have been translated into English and other languages.Aag Ka Duriya (River of Fire), her magnum opus, is a landmark novel that explores the vast sweep of time and history. It tells a story that moves from the fourth century BC to the post-Independence period in India and Pakistan, pausing at the many crucial epochs of history. Aamer Hussein in The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
wrote that River of Fire is to Urdu fiction what One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude
One Hundred Years of Solitude , by Gabriel García Márquez, is a novel which tells the multi-generational story of the Buendía family, whose patriarch, José Arcadio Buendía, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphoric Colombia...
is to Hispanic literature. Aag Ka Darya is essentially a novel written from the point of view of the believers of Pakistan and depicts their agony in detail, specially towards the climax of the novel.
Her other published works include: "Mere Bhi Sanam Khane", 1949; "Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil", 1952; Patjhar ki Awaz (The Voice of Autumn), 1965; Raushni ki Raftar (The Speed of Light), 1982; the short novel Chaye ke Bagh (Tea Plantations), 1965 (one of four novellas including Dilruba, Sita Haran, Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Na Kijo, exploring gender injustice) ; and the family chronicle Kar e Jahan Daraz Hai (The Work of the World Goes On).
Compared to her exact contemporaries, Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera , born 1 April 1929, is a writer of Czech origin who has lived in exile in France since 1975, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1981. He is best known as the author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and The Joke. Kundera has written in...
and Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...
, the breadth of her literary canvas, her vision and insight, transcend time.
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh , is a Bengali Indian author best known for his work in the English language.-Life:Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St...
writes that "hers is one of the most important Indian voices of the twentieth century."
Her first short story, Bi-Chuhiya (Little Miss Mouse), was published in children’s magazine Phool and at the age of nineteen wrote her first novel "Mayray Bhee Sanam khanay".
Awards and honours
She received the Jnanpith AwardJnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
in 1989 for her novel Aakhir-e-Shab ke Hamsafar (Travellers Unto the Night). She received the Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
, in 1967, Soviet Land Nehru Award, 1969, Ghalib Award, 1985. She won Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award
Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
for her collection of short stories Patjhar ki Awaz (The Sound of Falling Leaves) in 1967. The Urdu Academy in Delhi conferred upon her the Bahadur Shah Zafar Award in 2000. She was conferred Padma Shri
Padma Shri
Padma Shri is the fourth highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan...
by the Government of India in 1984, and in 2005 she was conferred the Padma Bhushan
Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan is the third highest civilian award in the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri. It is awarded by the Government of India.-History:...
the third highest civilian honor awarded by the Government of India, for her contribution to Urdu Literature and Education.
Death
Qurratulain Hyder died in a NOIDANoida
Noida , short for the New Okhla Industrial Development Area, is an area in India under the management of the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority . Noida came into administrative existence on 17 April 1976 and celebrates 17 April as "Noida Day". It was set up as part of an urbanization...
hospital, near New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
, India on August 21, 2007 after a protracted lung illness. She has been buried in the Jamia Millia Islamia
Jamia Millia Islamia
Jamia Millia Islamia is an Indian Central University located in Delhi. It was established at Aligarh in United Provinces, India in 1920. It became a Central University by an act of the Indian Parliament in 1988...
cemetery, New Delhi.
Her death has been condoled by the President and Prime Minister of India, and Chief Minister of her home state Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
.
Critics
It is believed that due to her high stature in social circles no criticism about her vision emerged although she was not infallible.Eminent Urdu novelist Paigham Afaqui has pointed out in his well appreciated article 'Aag Ka Darya - chand sawalat' that because she wrote Aag Ka Darya at an early age and because she was encircled by those who did not stay back in India at the time of partition she could not appreciate the point of view of those who did not migrate. After this article of Paigham Afaqui, she indeed reviewed such content and deleted in the English translation of the novel.Works
In translation- Sound of the Falling Leaves. Asia Publishing House, 1996. ISBN 0948724447.
- A Season of Betrayals: A Short Story and Two Novellas. Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 0195794176.
- River of Fire. Translated by Qurratulain Hyder. New Directions Pub., 2003. ISBN 0811215334.
- Fireflies in the Mist. New Directions Publishing, 2010. ISBN 0811218651
- The Exiles. tr. by Nadeem Aslam. Hesperus Press, 2010. ISBN 1843918544.
External links
- Remembering Ainee Aapa, Obituary published by Aaj
- Columns & articles about her at IBITIANS.com (Urdu)
- Library of Congress South Asian Literary Recordings Project
- Writer's Muse found at Jahane Rumi blog
- More information about her
- Zee News announcement of her death
- Deccan Herald announcement of her death
- Obituary published by the Friday Times, Pakistan