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Ghalib and After

Reading Urdu Poetry in Translation

  • Author Dr. Fatima Sheikh · University of Hyderabad

About this book

A sustained argument about what English translation of Urdu poetry has been doing for sixty years, and what it could do instead. Sheikh reads Ghalib across eleven English versions, then turns to Faiz, Parveen Shakir and Agha Shahid Ali to trace how the ghazal's formal machinery survives, mutates or disappears in transit. The book includes facing-page translations of nineteen ghazals with a critical apparatus explaining every choice.

Table of contents

  1. Introduction: The Trouble With Fidelity10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.01p. 1
  2. Eleven Ghalibs10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.02p. 29
  3. The Radif and Its Losses10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.03p. 74
  4. Faiz in the Cold War Anthology10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.04p. 118
  5. Parveen Shakir and the Gendered Sher10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.05p. 155
  6. Ali's Solution and Its Costs10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.06p. 191
  7. Nineteen Ghazals, Facing Pages10.53456/book.2026.ghalib-and-a.07p. 223

Every chapter carries its own DOI and can be cited independently of the volume.