Belles Lettres

This work is a translation of Hijab Imtiaz Ali’s work ’Adab-e-Zareen’ (1936) that contains 47 pieces of short writings that, although Ali herself categorized as short stories, are more in the nature of prose-poems that dwell on metaphysical themes of life, death, and the nature of existence. The pieces in the work are interlinked through similar strands like an exaltation of nature, a strong sense of time, and a Muslim woman writer’s delineations on the act of writing, the need for isolation and solace. The non-linear, fragmentary form of this work is very different from what Ali’s contemporaries were writing, and suggests that she was at the forefront of Urdu modernist literature.

Sascha A. Akhtar, Hijab Imtiaz Ali

Hijab Imtiaz Ali (Author) was a prominent Urdu literary figure. In her seven-decade-long writing career, she wrote several short stories, novels, and plays. Known as ’The Queen of Urdu Romanticism’, Ali was a pioneer writer from Pakistan. With her book of short stories, ’Belles-Lettres’, she appears to have been at the forefront of Urdu Modernist literature, before there was such a thing.
Sascha Aurora Akhtar (Translator) is an English-language poet and fiction writer with many publications to her name. She teaches poetry, mentors poets, and works as an editor. Her debut fiction, ’Of Necessity and Wanting’, was shortlisted for the UBL Prize 2021 for literary excellence.