Ahmad Nadim Qasmi

(Aḥmad Nadīm Qāsimī) 

1916-2006

Ahmad Nadim Qasmi (Aḥmad Nadīm Qāsimī; 1916-2006; also Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi) was born Ahmad Shah Awan (Aḥmad Shāh A‘wān) in the village of Angah, Shahpur District, Punjab. His father died when he was young, and Qasmi then lived with his uncle, an extra assistant commissioner in the Punjab provincial service. He received his B.A. in 1935, then worked at various jobs, including that of a subinspector for the excise department of the Punjab civil service from 1936 to 1946. In 1942 he became editor of the journals Tahẕīb-i niswān (Refinement of Women) and Phūl (Flower), and in 1943 he was the editor of Adab-i latīf (Belles-Lettres), one of the most influential literary journals in Urdu of the period. In 1953 he took over the editorship of the Urdu daily Imroz (Daily) from Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-84), who was imprisoned for his alleged implication in the contentious Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. Qasmi was a founding member of the All-Pakistan Progressive Writers’ Association and served as its general secretary until it was disbanded in 1958 by the coup d’état of General Ayub Khan (1907-74). In 1962 he established the highly influential journal Fanūn (Arts), which published many of Pakistan’s leading young Urdu writers.

The author of eleven volumes of poems, eighteen collections of short stories, as well as novels, and criticism, he was one of Pakistan’s most distinguished men of letters. His early poetry shows the strong influence of Progressive political ideology vis à vis British colonialism and the independence movement. After 1947 his focus shifts to his country’s political and social shortcomings, and missteps and the fraught, unending search for social and economic justice there.

English translations of his works include Selected Poems of Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, tr. Sajjad Shaikh (1995), The Old Banyan and Other Stories, tr. Faruq Hassan (2000); Selected Short Stories of Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi, tr. Sajjad Shaikh (2007); Flower on a Grave: Poems from Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi, tr. Daud Kamal (2008); Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi: War Stories & Poems, tr. Sajjad Shaikh (2012); and Thoughtful Musings: English Translations of a Selection of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’s Columns, Essays and Short Stories, tr. Mujahid Eshai (2017). See “Leslie A. Flemming Interviews Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi: A Friend and Colleague Reminisces,” Journal of South Asian Literature, 20:2 (1985) 147-51.