Qurratulain Hyder


Qurratulain Hyder was an influential Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya, a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post partition of India.
Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer and pioneers of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim. Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder, 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, 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.

Biography

Born on 20 January 1927 in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh,, 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 Táhirih. 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 finishing her education from Indraprastha College, Delhi and 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 "in the wake of burning trains of corpses going into and out of both countries, as Muslims moved to Pakistan and Hindus to India.". In 1959, the release of her novel Aag ka Darya met with controversy in Pakistan. Soon after publication, she 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, and a member of the editorial staff of the Illustrated Weekly of India. 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. In 1979 she was in residency at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.

Literary works

A prolific writer, 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 Dariya, 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. 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. 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. In a review for a 2019 reprint by New Directions Publishing, Aditi Sriram wrote in the New York Times that the novel "is as relevant in 2019 as it was when she first wrote it in 1959." Kamil Ahsan in The Nation wrote: "River of Fire tells a completist and syncretistic version of 2,500 years of history in modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—beginning with the Nanda Dynasty on the brink of defeat by the founder of the Mauryan Empire, and ending in post-Partition despair.”
Her other published works include: Mere Bhi Sanam Khane , 1949; Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil ' ', 1952; ' 'Patjhar ki Awaz , 1965; Raushni ki Raftar , 1982; the short novel Chaye ke Bagh , 1965 ; and the family chronicle Kar e Jahan Daraz Hai .
"Gardish e Rang e Chaman", "Aakhir e Shab kay Hamsafar", "Chandni Begum".
Her first short story, Bi-Chuhiya, was published in children's magazine Phool and at the age of nineteen wrote her first novel " Mayray Bhee Sanam khanay ".

Reception

Aamer Hussein in The Times Literary Supplement wrote that "Qurratulain Hyder is one of India’s most respected literary figures. Many of the techniques which she introduced in the 1950s have been borrowed by later writers whose ambitious reworkings of history have brought Indian literature so much acclaim
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."

Awards and honours

She received the Jnanpith Award in 1989 for her novel Aakhir-e-Shab ke Hamsafar . 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 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 honour awarded by the Government of India, for her contribution to Urdu Literature and education.

Death

Qurratulain Hyder died in a NOIDA hospital, near New Delhi, India on 21 August 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.

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