September 2010: Urdu Fiction from India

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE�
Contact Information
Contact: W. Brandon Lacy Campos, Development and Marketing Manager
Organization Name: Words without Borders
Telephone Number:
E-mail Address:
Web site Address: www.wordswithoutborders.org
 
Words without Borders announces its September issue: Urdu Fiction from India
 
New York City, New York, August 25, 2010—Words without Borders (WWB) announces an issue of Urdu fiction from India edited and translated by the respected Urdu scholar and translator Muhammad Umar Memon, professor emeritus of Urdu literature and Islamic studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 
Speaking about the issue, WWB editor Rohan Kamicheril stated, “The prospect of a contemporary Urdu fiction issue was an exciting one from the start. Indian writing in translation is already a rarity among books published in the West. Urdu writing from India exists as an even smaller subset within that group. Readers in the West are readily familiar with a number of excellent Indian writers who write in English, but very few realize that there is vital new work being produced in local Indian languages. It’s a delight to bring these fabulous writers, and the world of contemporary Urdu fiction to our English-language readers.”
 
The issue also includes an introduction from Memon that explains the social, religious, and historical forces that have formed modern Urdu literature, from the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan to more recent events.
�Two of the remarkable writers included in the issue are Naiyer Masud and Quratullain Hyder.
 
Masud is considered the finest proponent of the Urdu short story and has won India’s highest literary award, the Saraswati Samman. Included in this issue is his story “Destitutes Compound.”
 
Hyder is acknowledged as the most celebrated woman writing in the subcontinent.  Her book River of Fire was listed by Literature Nobel Laureate J.M.G. Le Clézio as one of his favorite works. In Beyond the Fog," in the September issue  we follow Hyder’s protagonist on a cross-cultural, cross-continent romp as she tries to escape her past, only to find her history following closely behind her.
 
Other writers featured in this issue include: Ismat Chughtai, Siddiq Aalam, Sajid Rashid, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Salam Bin Razzack, Anwer Khan, and Zakia Mashhadi.
 
For additional information, please contact:
 
Contact: W. Brandon Lacy Campos, Development and Marketing Manager
Organization Name: Words without Borders
Telephone Number: 646-460-1462
Email Address: brandon@wordswithoutborders.org
Website Address: www.wordswithoutborders.org
 
Founded in 2003, Words without Borders is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that has translated over 1,200 pieces of literature and poetry representing 80 languages by writers from 111 countries. WWB has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, the Guardian (UK), Vanity Fair, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as in various foreign-language papers and numerous literary blogs. We were selected as a featured “pick” by Yahoo immediately after our launch issue and voted one of Time magazine’s “Fifty Coolest Websites” in July 2004.

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