Shalini Venugopal Bhagat, The New York Times
Published: 08 Jan 2021 01:17 PM BdST
Updated: 08 Jan 2021 01:17 PM BdST Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was credited with the revival of Urdu literature, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries. He died of Covid-19. Photo taken via the poet s official Facebook page.
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, a creative and critical voice in Urdu literature for more than a half-century, died Dec 25 at his home in Allahabad, India. He was 85. );
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The cause was complications of COVID-19, his daughter Mehr Afshan Farooqi said. (Faruqi changed the spelling of his surname in the 1980s.)
Faruqi has been credited among scholars with the revival of Urdu literature, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries. His output over the years as a scholar, editor, publisher, critic, literary historian, translator and acclaimed writer of both poetry and novels was varied and prolific.
Born in Azamgarh and raised in Gorakhpur, Faruqi was a chief postmaster-general and member of the Postal Services Board in New Delhi until 1994.
Part of the first batch of the BA programme at Maharana Pratap College in Gorakhpur, he pursued a Master’s degree in English from Allahabad University in 1955. Although he topped the university, he did not receive a first-class, which he thought was probably because “he asked too many questions, or did not dress in the three-piece suits”.
He had chosen to work on a doctorate in English symbolism and the influence of French literature, and poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan was assigned as his supervisor. But after Bachchan came down heavily on him for missing a meeting, Faruqi did not return to pursue his doctorate, he had said in an interview.