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.
Saadat Hasan Manto was a Pakistani writer, playwright and author born in Ludhiana, who was active in British India and later, after the 1947 partition of India, in Pakistan.
Ismat Chughtai was an Indian Urdu novelist, short story writer, liberal humanist and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1930s, she wrote extensively on themes including female sexuality and femininity, middle-class gentility, and class conflict, often from a Marxist perspective. With a style characterised by literary realism, Chughtai established herself as a significant voice in the Urdu literature of the twentieth century, and in 1976 was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
Urdu literature comprises the literary works, written in the Urdu language. While, It tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ghazal and nazm, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, or afsana. Urdu literature is popular mostly in Pakistan, where Urdu is the national language, and in India, where it is a Eighth Schedule language.
Khalid Hasan was a Pakistani journalist and writer. Author and editor of several books, in addition to being a regular columnist for a number of English-language Pakistani newspapers, he is best known for his translations of the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto and the lyrics of Faiz Ahmed Faiz.
The Progressive Writers' Association or the Progressive Writers' Movement of India or Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind or Akhil Bhartiya Pragatishil Lekhak Sangh was a progressive literary movement in pre-partition British India. Some branches of this writers' group existed around the world besides in India, Kashmir and Pakistan
Rashid Jahan was an Indian writer and medical doctor known for her Urdu literature and trenchant social commentaries. She wrote short stories and plays and contributed to Angarey (1932), a collection of unconventional short stories written in collaboration with Sajjad Zaheer, Ahmed Ali, and Mahmuduz Zafar.
Syed Sajjad Zaheer was an Indian Urdu writer, Marxist ideologue and radical revolutionary who worked in both India and Pakistan. In the pre-independence era, he was a member of the Communist Party of India and the Progressive Writers' Movement. Upon independence and partition, he moved to the newly created Pakistan and became a founding member of the Communist Party of Pakistan.
Qurratulain Hyder was an Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding and influential literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya, a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the fourth century BC to post partition of India.
Mirza Muhammad Hadi RuswaUrdu مرزا ہادی رسوا was an Indian Urdu poet and writer of fiction, plays, and treatises. He served on the Nawab of Awadh's advisory board on language matters for many years. He spoke many languages including Urdu, Greek, and English.
Mushirul Hasan was a historian of modern India. He wrote on the partition of India, communalism, and on the history of Islam in South Asia.
Rajinder Singh Bedi was an Indian Urdu writer of the progressive writers' movement and a playwright, who later worked in Hindi cinema as a film director, screenwriter and dialogue writer and he is grandfather to Rajat Bedi and Manek Bedi.
Akhlaq Mohammad Khan, better known by his takhallusShahryar, was an Indian academician, and a doyen of Urdu poetry in India. As a Hindi film lyricist, he is best known for his lyrics in Gaman (1978) and Umrao Jaan (1981) directed by Muzaffar Ali. He retired as the head of the Urdu Department at the Aligarh Muslim University, and thereafter he remained sought after name in mushairas or poetic gatherings, and also co-edited the literary magazine Sher-o-Hikmat.
Ahmad Siddiq, better known by his pen name Majnun Gorakhpuri, was an Urdu short story (Afsana) writer, poet and literary critic.
Shahid Mahmood Nadeem is a Pakistani journalist, playwright, screenwriter, theater and television director, and a human rights activist.
Thanda Gosht is a short story written by Saadat Hasan Manto. The book was first published in a literary magazine in March 1950 in Pakistan. Later it was published by Sang-e-Meel Publications. Manto was charged with obscenity for this story and faced a trial in criminal court.
Angarey or Angaaray is a collection of nine short stories and a one act play in Urdu by Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Mahmud-uz-Zafar and Ahmed Ali first published in 1932 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the Progressive Writers' Movement in Indian literature. The release of the book was marked by protests and it was subsequently banned by the government of the United Provinces a few months after publication.
Manto Ke Afsanay is a collection of short stories in Urdu by Saadat Hasan Manto. It was first published in 1940. Rekhta has the largest collection of 233 stories written by Saadat Hasan Manto.
Dhuan is a collection of short stories in Urdu by Saadat Hasan Manto first published in 1941.
