Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi

Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi (1916–2006), born Ahmad Shah Awan on 20 November 1916 at Anga in Khushab district, Punjab, was one of the central figures of modern Urdu literature — poet, short-story writer, critic, journalist and editor. From a family of Sufi pirs, he graduated from the University of the Punjab, Lahore, in 1935, briefly served in the excise department, and then gave his life to letters. He edited Phool, Tehzeeb-i-Niswaan, Adab-i-Lateef, Savera and Naqoosh, edited the daily Imroze, and from 1962 published his own journal Funoon for almost half a century — the nursery of a generation, Parveen Shakir among his mentees. As secretary-general of the Progressive Writers' Movement in Punjab (1948) and then Pakistan (1949), and from 1974 of the Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab, Lahore, he was repeatedly arrested in the 1950s and 1970s for his convictions. His poetry moves between the traditional ghazal and the modern nazm, and his short stories — Chaupal, Bagooley, Sannata among them — are counted, by some critics, second only to Premchand in their depiction of rural life. He received the Pride of Performance (1968) and the Sitara-e-Imtiaz (1980), and died in Lahore on 10 July 2006.