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Angāre and the Founding of the Progressive Writers' Association

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Shabana Mahmud
Shabana Mahmud
Affiliation:
The British Library
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Extract

The book Angāre, a collection of ten short stories by Sajjād Ẓahīr, Rashīd Jahān, Aḥmed 'Alī and Maḥmūduzẓafar published in Lucknow in December 1932, marks a major turning point in the history of Urdu literature. Acting as a powerful catalyst, it initiated a major change in the form and content of Urdu literature and helped to lay the basis for the establishment of the Progressive Writers Association, the most significant Urdu literary movement of the twentieth century.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 1996 , pp. 447 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Angāre has been reprinted with an extensive introduction by Mahmud, Shabana, Angāre, ek jaiza (Sweden: Bokforlag Kitabiat, 1988), 134p.Google Scholar

2 Aḥmed, 'Azīz, Taraqqī pasand adab (Hyderabad [Deccan], 1945).Google Scholar

3 'Alī, Aḥmed, ‘The Progressive Writers Movement and Creative Writers in Urdu’, in: Marxist Influences & South Asian Literature, ed. Coppolla, Carlo (Michigan, 1974), p. 36.Google Scholar

4 I give the Urdu originals in Appendix I. I would like to acknowledge my thanks to Aḥmed 'Ali for producing the copies of the Urdu newspaper cuttings, and to Ralph Russell for all the help he has given me in the preparation of this article.

5 Act XLV 1860. V/8/349. For the text of the notification of the ban see Appendix II. Proscription notice sent to India Office (now likewise in the OIOC, BL) lists it as item 17 in a list of 21 publications proscribed during the quarter ending March 31, 1933. Unpublished copyright documents reproduced in this publication appear by permission of the controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office.

6 Quoted by Coppola, , Carlo, , ‘The Angare group: the infants terribles of Urdu literature,’ in Annual of Urdu Studies 1 (1981), p. 61.Google Scholar

7 For a further description of the contents of Angāre see the introduction in the reprint cited above; this introduction has also been published separately in Funūn 28 (September–October 1989). See also Russell, Ralph, The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Select history (London: Zed Books, 1992), pp. 205–8.Google Scholar

8 Some of them had already been published elsewhere; for instance, Aḥmed 'Alī's story Mahāvaṭoṉ kī ek rāt had earlier appeared in the Lahore journal Ḥumāyuṉ in January 1932. Aḥmed 'Alī's other story in the collection is Bādal nahiṉ āte.Google Scholar

9 A full translation of this is included in Russell, Ralph (tr. & ed.), Hidden in the Lute: An Anthology of Urdu Literature in English Translation (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1995).Google Scholar

10 A copy is held in the Oriental and India Office Collections, shelfmark Urdu B 2901. Other stories in the collection include Shaikh Makhmūr, Yehī merā valan hai (This is my country) and Sansarik prem our desh prem (Universal love and love of country).

11 'Alī, Aḥmed, ‘The Progressive Writers Movement’, p. 40.Google Scholar

12 'Alī, Aḥmed, ‘The Progressive Writers Movement in its Historical Perspective’, in: Journal of South Asian Literature 8, no. 4 (1977–1978), pp. 91–7.Google Scholar

13 Ẓahīr, Sajjād, Reminiscences, in: Indian Literature 11, (Bombay 1952), p. 51.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 51.