Intizar Hussain, Pakistan's 'greatest fiction writer', dies at 92

Intizar Hussain
Intizar Hussain Credit: AFP/Getty Images

 Pakistani author Intizar Hussain,  one of the greatest Urdu writers in history, died on February 2, 2016, aged 92, in Lahore.

The prolific author was known for his novels, short stories, columns and poetry and belatedly saw worldwide recognition when he was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013 and was awarded France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres a year later.

Born on December 7, 1923,  in Dibai, India. Hussain said that as a child he was inspired by reading a copy of Arabian Nights that his girl cousins and sisters kept hidden.  He migrated to the newly formed Pakistan in 1947 – an experience he wrote about 50 years later in The First Morning. The story captured the horror and optimism that accompanied the partition of India where an estimated 14 million people were displaced.

The history of Pakistan and the subcontinent was also the setting for his acclaimed novel Basti, published in 1979 and later translated into English.

Asked once whether he preferred the short story to other forms, Hussain replied: "The tradition of the Progressives in the 1930s and 1940s made it easier to get short stories published. We could do it in literary magazines. Finding a publisher with a longer novel was usually very difficult, so while I have written many novels, the short story was the form I found very useful and turned to frequently."


He was also a regular literary columnist for Pakistan's leading English-language daily Dawn, and in later years became known as a voice of moderation and advocate of what he saw as the subcontinent's ancient traditions of pluralism and tolerance.

Fellow Urdu writer Munnu Bhai told AFP: "Intizar Hussain was a man of letters. His death has left a huge gap in the literary circle of the subcontinent that would be felt of the centuries to come."

Hussain's wife, Aliya Begum, died in 2004 and the couple had no children.