Musharraf Ali Farooqi

Musharraf Ali Farooqi (born 26 July 1968, Hyderabad, Pakistan) is a Pakistani-Canadian writer, translator and essayist. Farooqi was among the five writers shortlisted for Asia's most prestigious literary prize in 2012.^[1]

Biography

Farooqi received his early education in Hyderabad, at St Bonaventure's High School and the Model School and College in Hyderabad, Sindh, and proceeded to attend NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi for three years, not finishing his degree.^[2]

Farooqi is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Between Clay And Dust (Aleph Book Company, 2012) which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. His earlier novel The Story of a Widow (Knopf, 2008) was shortlisted for the 2011 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; it was earlier longlisted for the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Rabbit Rap is Farooqi's modernist fable for Young Adults (Viking/Penguin Books India, 2012). His children's fiction includes the collection The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander the Iron Man and Other Stories illustrated by Michelle Farooqi (Puffin India, 2011) which was shortlisted for the India ComicCon Award in the Best Publication for Children category, and the picture book The Cobbler's Holiday: or Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes (Roaring Brook Press, 2008).

His critically acclaimed translation of the 1871 version of Dastan-e Amir Hamza (Adventures of Amir Hamza) by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami was published in October 2007 by the Modern Library. An abridged version was published in February 2012. He published the first book of a projected 24-volume translation of the world's first magical fantasy epic, Hoshruba,^[3] in 2009. A selection from his translation of contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed's poetry was published by the Wesleyan University Press Poetry Series in 2010.

Farooqi is developing the Urdu Project,^[4] an online resource for the study of Urdu language and literature.

He lives in Toronto, Canada and Karachi, Pakistan.

Awards and honours

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• 2012 Man Asian Literary Prize, shortlist for Between Clay and Dust^[5]
• 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Hoshruba: The Prisoner of Batin by Muhammed Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar, translated from the Urdu^[6]
• 2011 DSC Prize, shortlist for The Story of a Widow^[7]

Bibliography

Novels and other fiction

• Tik-Tik: The Master of Time – Children's Novel
• Rabbit Rap – An illustrated novel with art by Michelle Farooqi (Viking/Penguin Books India, South Asia Edition), July 2012
• Between Clay and Dust: A Novel (Aleph Book Company, South Asia Edition), April 2012
• Between Clay and Dust: A Novel (Restless Books, World Edition), October 2013^[8]
• The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander the Iron Man & Other Stories illustrated by Michelle Farooqi (Puffin India, 2011)
• The Story of a Widow (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008; Picador India, 2009)
• The Cobbler's Holiday: or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes (Roaring Brook Press, 2008)
• Salar Jang's Passion (Summersdale Publishers, UK, 2002; HarperCollins India, 2001)

Translations

• Rococo and Other Worlds – Selected Poetry of Afzal Ahmed Syed (Wesleyan University Press Poetry Series, 2010)
• The Beast – Translation of Syed Muhammad Ashraf's Urdu novella "Numberdar ka Neela" (Tranquebar Press/Westland Books, 2010)
• Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, originally published (1883–1893) in Urdu as Tilism-e Hoshruba by Muhammad Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar. (Urdu Project/Random House India, 2009)
• The Adventures of Amir Hamza, originally written in Urdu by Ghalib Lakhnavi (Random House/Modern Library, 2007)
• The Adventures of Amir Hamza, (Specially abridged edition) originally written in Urdu by Ghalib Lakhnavi (Random House/Modern Library, 2012)

Film Essays

• The Foot-Worshipper's Guide to Watching Maula Jatt (The Popcorn Essayists: What Movies Do to Writers., Ed. by Jai Arjun Singh, Tranquebar, 2011)

Forthcoming Works Serial Novel – The Goat-Spy

• Diaries
• Letters The Goat-Spy Letters

Critical essays

• "The Poetics of Amir Hamza's World: Notes on the Ghalib Lakhnavi / Abdullah Bilgrami Version" (pp. 89–97, Volume 24, Annual of Urdu Studies, 2009)
• "Introduction to Tilism-e Hoshruba" (pp. 71–88, Volume 24, Annual of Urdu Studies, 2009)
• "The Simurgh Feather Guide to the Poetics of Dastan-e Amir Hamza Sahibqiran" (pp. 119–167, Volume 15, Annual of Urdu Studies, 2000)

References

1. Musharraf Ali Farooqi shortlisted for Man Asian Literary Prize
2. Interview, in edition of 4 May 2008 of Dawn's Weekly Magazine, following up to the publication of Dastan-e-Ameer Hamza
3. Hoshruba
4. Urdu Project
5. Alison Flood (9 January 2013). "Man Asian literary prize shortlist stages Booker re-match". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
6. "Announcing the 2012 PEN Translation Fund Grant Recipients". PEN American Center. 15 October 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
7. "SHORTLIST FOR THE DSC PRIZE FOR SOUTH ASIAN LITERATURE ANNOUNCED". DSC Prize. 26 October 2010. Retrieved 24 February 2013.
8. "Between Clay and Dust".

External links

• Official author website
• Urdu Project
• Hoshruba