Introducing the Translator 

Professor Carlo Coppola is Professor Emeritus of Hindi-Urdu and Linguistics at Oakland University (Michigan, USA) and the author of Urdu Poetry, 1935-1970: The Progressive Episode. (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2017). This book is a detailed study of the Progressive Movement – an important literary phenomenon  in mid-20th-century Urdu literature – and five of its major poets. 

He attended John Carroll University where he achieved a BA in English and French, later completing an MA in English and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago. He has also studied at Aligarh Muslim University (Uttar Pradesh, India),  the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and Indiana University (Bloomington).

After having taught in academia for over forty years, Professor Coppola is now editing a series of interviews, essays and translations drawn from the journal that he co-founded with Professor C.M. Naim – Mahfil: A Quarterly of South Asian Literature (1963-72), later retitled as the Journal of South Asian Literature (1973-2002). These publications were at the forefront of critical engagement with South Asian Literature and will be republished in Contributions to South Asian Literature, 1963-2002; Select Writings from Mahfil, A Quarterly of South Asian Literature and the Journal of South Asian Literature (forthcoming). 

Professor Coppola has also worked on cultural history, postcolonial literary theory, linguistics and translation. He was editor for the two volume Marxist Influences and South Asian Literature, (East Lansing, MI: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, 1974), the Anthology: Mohan Rakesh, (New Delhi: Radha Krishna Prakashan, 1975) and the book Critical Perspectives on Socialist Realism in Asian Literature (Pueblo, CO: Passeggiata Press, 1992). Professor Coppola is currently working on several projects in the field of South Asian literature.