SOME critics draw parallels between Urdu ghazal and Urdu short story. Ghazal, the most popular genre of Urdu poetry, is known for its brevity, compactness and crispness.

URDU short story is now over 100 years old, though the reply to the question ‘When did it exactly begin?’ may be a bit disputed. Urdu’s three different short story writers are mentioned as ...

If someone thinks Urdu short stories are a thing of the past when writers such as Manto, Bedi, Krishan Chandar and Ismat Chughtai ruled supreme, they are mistaken. “Just in the past one year ...

That’s why the new anthology, Contemporary Urdu Short Stories from Kolkata, edited by Shams Afif Siddiqi and Fuzail Asar Siddiqi and translated by the former, is a pioneering work.It compiles 19 ...

Her first short-story collection, Apni Nagariya, was published in 1947 with a preface by Muhammad Hasan Askari. Shirin excelled both in creative writing and criticism, as evidenced by works like ...

The opening story of Zakiya Mashhadi’s latest publication Diya Baati ki Bela, a collection of short Urdu stories, is a must-read to comprehend and diagnose the current problems of Hindu-Muslim ...

Break It Down, by Lydia Davis. Davis is a master of the very short story, and the collection that made her name, Break It Down, includes such works as the four-sentence “What She Knew,” where ...

Besides writing short stories, Mumtaz Shirin also brought out Urdu journal ‘Naya Daur’ with husband Samad Shaheen, which became a standard for journals at the time. Her literary criticism as a ...

Ejaz Rahi edited an anthology of fourteen Urdu short stories titled Gawahi (Testimony) a few months after the imposition of martial law. The book was banned, and the editor lost his job.

292pp, ₹415; Niyogi Books. That’s why the new anthology, Contemporary Urdu Short Stories from Kolkata, edited by Shams Afif Siddiqi and Fuzail Asar Siddiqi and translated by the former, is a ...