Niaz Fatehpuri (1884-1966) was the nom de plume of Niyaz Muhammed Khan,[1] an Urdu poet and writer and a polemicist. He was also the founder and editor of Nigar which he turned into one of the most prestigious Urdu literary journals in the Indian subcontinent. Early life
He was born in Fatehpur Hasva in Uttar Pradesh, India in 1884 and was educated in Fatehpur, Rampur and Lucknow.
Literary activities
Niaz Fatehpuri was a fiction-writer of repute, whose Urdu short-stories, which are poems in prose, are considered to be on a par with those of Munshi Premchand and find a prominent place in Urdu Literature. He was also an Urdu poet and critic, and a polemicist who dared to raise his voice against Fundamentalism. Until he migrated to Pakistan in 1962,[2] he had continued to publish and edit Nigar the Urdu monthly journal, which he had launched in 1921. This was originally published from Agra, then from Bhopal and subsequently from Lucknow. It is still published from Karachi by Farman Fatehpuri. Niaz Fatehpuri wrote on Urdu and Hindi literature, on religion and on the many evils affecting the social fabric of India in his time. He has more than two dozen major works to his credit. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1962 for his services to Urdu.
Analysis
In 1974, Malik Ram included him in his award-winning book of essays "Woh Surten Ilahi" (The Immortals) on nine 'unforgettable giants' in the Urdu literary world. [4]In 1986, the Urdu Academy in Karachi published the book " Niaz Fatehpuri - Shakhsiyat aur Fikr - o - Fan " by Farman Fatehpuri on the life and literary works of Niaz Fatehpuri.[5]
Personal
He is the father of noted Urdu writer Dr. Sarfaraz Niazi, who has translated Ghalib's poetry into English in two books titled "Love Sonnets of Ghalib" and "The Wine of Passion", both published by Ferozsons, Lahore, Pakistan.
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