ZAFAR ALI KHAN (1873–1956)
The writer, poet, translator, freedom fighter, political activist and journalist was the editor of the influential newspaper Zamindar, which played an important role in spreading awareness about the evils of colonial rule among Indians. Khan is generally considered to be the father of Urdu journalism. Clearly opposed to Mahatma Gandhi’s policy of non-violence, he believed in direct confrontation with the British. An ardent supporter of the Khilafat Movement, he also had to serve a prison term of five years for his role in the freedom movement. For Khan, poetry was a mode of sociopolitical resistance. Most of what he wrote represents contemporary history in literary terms. His collections of poems include Baharistan, Nigaristan and Chamanistan.
AGHA HASHAR KASHMIRI (1879–1935)
A prolific Urdu poet, playwright and dramatist, Kashmiri went on to attain great fame after several of his plays were turned into films. The most notable among them are Yahudi ki Ladki, Rustom-o Sohrab and Laila-Majnu. He’s also credited with translating a number of Shakespeare’s plays for Hindustani audiences, such as Safed Khoon (White Blood) based on King Lear and Khwab-e Hasti (A Dream of Existence), loosely based on Macbeth. Kashmiri was married to Mukhtar Begum, a renowned classical singer from Calcutta and the elder sister of Farida Khanum, the Pakistani singer.
Translators
INSHA WAZIRI is an undergraduate student of Philosophy and Psychology at Jesus & Mary College, University of Delhi.
RAKHSHANDA JALIL is a writer, translator and literary historian. She runs Hindustani Awaaz and lives in Delhi.
DEBJANI SENGUPTA’s translations from Bengali have been published in The Oxford Anthology of Bengali Literature (Vol. 2) and Essential Tagore (Harvard University Press). She has translated works by Taslima Nasreen, Selina Hossain, Tilottama Majumdar, Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam. Her edited volume Mapmaking: Partition Stories from Two Bengals contain her translations of short fiction as does the anthology Looking Back: The 1947 Partition of India 70 Years On, which she co-edited. Sengupta is the author of The Partition of Bengal: Fragile Borders and New Identities (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She teaches English at Indraprastha College for Women in New Delhi.
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