Liking Progress, Loving Change A Literary History Of The Progressive Writers’ Movement In Urdu

Rakhshanda Jalil

Oxford University Press

512 pages, Rs 1495

The Progressive Writers’ Movement shaped the political consciousness of a large number of people with its emphasis on nation-building and social transformation. The stalwarts of modern Urdu literature—Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ismat Chughtai, Kaifi Azmi, Krishan Chander, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rashid Jahan, Ali Sardar Jafri—contributed prominently, and were endorsed by eminent writers in other languages, such as Rabindranath Tagore and Sarojini Naidu. Jalil traces the evolution of the movement from its heyday in the 1930s to its decline in the 1950s.