Andaz-e-Bayaan

Summary

This audio compilation has been made with love for anyone wanting to immerse themselves in the world of Urdu stories but may find it difficult to read the script.

Featured authors include legends like Ismat Chughtai of the ‘Taraqqii Pasand Tehreek’ (Progressive Writer’s Movement), one of the first Muslim women to write boldly about subjects such as sexuality in the 1940’s; Munshi Premchand, a Hindu writer born in 1880, who was a pioneering figure in both Hindi and Urdu short fiction and wrote on topics such as caste, which were marked by sociopolitical and religious sensitivities; Sa’adat Hassan Manto, who belonged to both Bombay & Lahore and wrote about the partition that resulted in the nations of India and Pakistan, known for stories that showed a mirror to society regardless of the discomfort caused by stark reflections; Rajinder Singh Bedi, a versatile short fiction, novel, and film writer who also amplified the social issues of rurality as they dovetailed with national and metropolitan life; Ghulam Abbas, a novelist and short fiction writer interested in bringing to light the many ironies of modernity; Noon Meem (“NM”) Rashid, a groundbreaking modernist poet who wrote primarily in free verse, exploring contrasting relationships such as those between language & meaning and self & society; Asad Muhammad Khan, whose short fiction weaves his rich life experiences into commentaries on topics such as family life and class relations; and Intizar Hussain, who was arguably the most significant Urdu literary prose writer of the contemporary era, painting epics of migration and nostalgia on an intergenerational canvas.

Our narrator, Mr. Zia Mohyeddin, perhaps more than any other single figure in modern times, has shaped an appreciation for Urdu literature by making it accessible in masterfully emotive and lucid audio performances to generations of listeners who may have otherwise remained deprived of such learning and aesthetic pleasure.