Modern Urdu Short Stories from Pakistan

This anthology brings together English translations of twenty-six Urdu short stories by mostly renowned Pakistani writers. All the stories were written between 1947 and the present time. Authors range from the celebrated Saadat Hasan Manto to Dr Shershah Syed and Mehmood Zafar. Not all of these stories are necessarily the most famous works of their authors, and most of them have not been translated into English before. However, their exquisite depiction of diverse experiences and social realities justifies calling them unforgettable gems of Urdu short story writing. Selected and translated by Amina Azfar, these stories will delight the general reader and will also be found useful by students and scholars studying South Asian literature, culture, and history.

Amina Azfar is a freelance editor, writer, and translator. She was educated in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and is a former editor of Oxford University Press, Pakistan. She now works as a freelance editor and translator. Her books, The Dust of the Road, and The Oxford Book of Urdu Short Stories received the Hasan Askari Award for best translation work from the Pakistan Academy of Letters, in the years 2007 and 2009, respectively. Azfar has authored textbooks, as well as storybooks for children in Urdu and English. She has contributed articles to various newspapers, and reviewed books for the Pakistani newspaper, Dawn. Before joining OUP, she taught English language at the Pakistan American Cultural Centre in Karachi for nine years.