The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza narrates the legendary exploits of an Arab warrior named Hamza, usually mistaken for Hamza ibn Abdul-Muttalib, an uncle of Muhammad. Most of the stories are extremely fanciful, "a continuous series of romantic interludes, threatening events, narrow escapes, and violent acts". The Hamzanama chronicles the fantastic adventures of Hamza as he and his band of heroes fight the enemies.
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, better known as Munshi Premchand based on his pen name Premchand, was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of the first authors to write about caste hierarchies and the plights of women and laborers prevalent in the society of late 1880s. He is one of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent, and is regarded as one of the foremost Hindi writers of the early twentieth century. His works include Godaan, Karmabhoomi, Gaban, Mansarovar, Idgah. He published his first collection of five short stories in 1907 in a book called Soz-e-Watan.
Urdu literature refers to the literature in the Urdu standard of the Hindostani language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal غزل and nazm نظم, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana افسانہ. Urdu literature is mostly popular in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language and India, where it is a recognized language.
Ehsan Danish, born Ehsan-ul-HaqEḥsānu l-Ḥaq), was an Urdu poet, prose writer, linguist, lexicographer and scholar from Pakistan. Ehsan Danish had penned down over 100 scholastic books on poetry, prose, linguistics, lexicography and prosody. At the beginning of his career his poetry was very romantic but later he wrote his poems more for the labourers and came to be called "Šhāʿir-e Mazdūr" by his audience. According to one commentator, his poetry inspired the common people's feelings and he has been compared with Josh Malihabadi. He holds the unique position as one of the best poets of all times, with fine, romantic and revolutionary, but simple style of poetry.
Ali Muhammad Khan was a Rohilla chief of Jat descent who founded the Kingdom of Rohilkhand in the northwestern region of the Uttar Pradesh state of India. He succeeded his foster father Sardar Daud Khan Rohilla at the age of fourteen and was generally regarded as a non-oppressive ruler to the masses. He was well regarded for his political ability, and was granted the right to use India's highest insignia of the Mahseer by the Emperor Muhammad Shah. His young death along with the tender age of his children led to Hafiz Rehmat Khan's regency which was in large part governed against his wishes, despite Rehmat Khan's solemn oath on the Quran to fulfil dying Ali Mohammad's will.
Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar was an Indian Urdu novelist, columnist and editor from British India. Born into a Kashmiri Brahmin family which settled in Lucknow, he received his education at Canning College and later took up employment as a schoolteacher. In August 1878, he was appointed editor of the Lucknow-based newspaper Avadh Akhbar, in which his most famous work Fasana-e-Azad was published serially.
Amritlal Nagar was one of the prominent Hindi writers of the twentieth century.
The Munsif Daily is an Urdu language newspaper published from Hyderabad in India. Its Editor-in-chief is Mohammad Abdul Jaleel. The Munsif Daily is the largest circulated Urdu newspaper in India.
Munshi Nawal Kishore was a book publisher from India. He has been called Caxton of India. In 1858, at the age of 22, he founded the Nawal Kishore Press at Lucknow. This institution today is the oldest printing and publishing concern in Asia. Mirza Ghalib was one of his admirers.
Fatima Begum is a revered woman of the Pakistan Movement.
Vijay Kumar Chopra is the chief executive officer and editor in chief of the Punjab Kesari print news organisation. He is involved in social welfare work and has received a Padma Shri award. In August 2009, he was elected by the Chairman of the Press Trust of India.
Dastangoi is a 13th century Urdu oral storytelling art form. The Persian style of dastan evolved in 16th century. One of the earliest references in print to dastangoi is a 19th-century text containing 46 volumes of the adventures of Amir Hamza titled Dastan e Amir Hamza.
Upendranath Sharma "Ashk", was an Indian novelist, short story writer and playwright. He was born in Jalandhar, Punjab. In 1933 he wrote his second short story collection in Urdu called Aurat Ki Fitrat, the foreword of which was written by Munshi Premchand. Ashk began his literary career writing in Urdu but he switched to Hindi on the advice of Munshi Premchand. He joined All India Radio in 1941 where Krishan Chander, Patras Bokhari and Saadat Hasan Manto were among his colleagues. He settled in Allahabad in the late 1940s. He was the first Hindi dramatist to receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for playwriting in 1965.
Akhbar-e-Madina, or Madina for short, was an Urdu-language biweekly newspaper published in Bijnor, India between 1912 and 1975.
The Aligarh Movement was the push to establish a modern system of Western-style scientific education for the Muslim population of British India, during the later decades of the 19th century. The movement's name derives from the fact that its core and origins lay in the city of Aligarh in Central India and, in particular, with the foundation of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. The founder of the oriental college, and the other educational institutions that developed from it, was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He became the leading light of the wider Aligarh Movement.
The Awadh Punch was an Urdu satirical weekly published from Lucknow, India from 1877 to 1937, It was launched on Jan 16, 1877 and was founded and edited by Munshi Sajjad Husain. It was modeled on Punch, a London-based weekly magazine from which it also derived its name. Some of its notable contributors were Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar, Syed Mohammad Azad, Tribhavan Nath Hijr, Machchu Baig Sitam Zareef, Javala Prashad Barq, Ahmed Ali Shauq Qidvai and Akbar Allahabadi. The paper was one of the first to publish political satire, especially protesting British rule, in India. It had to be closed down in 1912 but was revived in 1916 and it continued till, at least, Dec 1937. In the third and last attempt to revive it, this was published by Ahmad Jamal Pasha in 1959 and closed in 1962.
Fasana-e-Azad is an Urdu novel by Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar. It was serialized in Avadh Akhbar between 1878 and 1883 before it was published in four large volumes by the Nawal Kishore Press. The story follows a wandering character named Azad and his companion, Khoji, from the streets of late-nineteenth-century Lucknow to the battlefields of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) in Constantinople and Russia. The work's status as a novel has been debated, but it is thought by most scholars to be one of the first novels in Urdu.
Moulvi Muhammad Baqir (1780–1857) was a scholar, an Indian independence activist and journalist based in Delhi. He was the first journalist to be executed following rebellion in 1857. He was arrested on 16 September 1857 and executed by gunshot two days later without trial.
The Nawal Kishore Press was a publishing house founded by Munshi Nawal Kishore in Lucknow, British India, in 1858. It grew rapidly between 1865 and 1872 from its modest beginnings as a small printing press, adopting modern technology and improved marketing, and engaging in innovative print ventures. The Press began to decline after 1890, when Nawal Kishore's successor was unable to keep up his legacy.
