Kar e Jahan Daraz Hai Vol. 1, 2 / کارِ جہاں دراز ہے جلد اول، دوم

by Qurratulain Hyder

قرۃ العین حیدر کا سوانحی ناول (خودنوشت) جلد اول، دوم

768 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Qurratulain Hyder was an influential Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959 from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post partition of India. Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer and a pioneer of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880–1943). Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894–1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published her first novel.

She received the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for Patjhar Ki Awaz (Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award for Akhir-e-Shab Ke Humsafar, and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 2005.

Reviews

[Nirmal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great literary autobiographical novel. Full of insightful and incisive anecdotes, analysis , observations about India, Pakistan and Bangladesh covering most of the 20th century. Covers most of the social, cultural, artistic and literary events. Personal life story is interspersed with the general historical narrative. Narrative Style is cerebral and cool and full of great sense of humor but also sincere and knowledgeable. It has been prepared as labour of love by Ainee apa.

A somewhat demanding but very rewarding read.

We are grateful to Ainee Apa for providing these precious and delightful gifts including great stories (my personal most favourite one is Jin Bolo Tara Tara), novels like aag ka dariya, Sita Haran, Chandni begum, akhir-e-shab ... etc, novellettes like Agle janam mohe bitiya na kijo, Dilruba etc and 3 vol autobiographical novel kar e Jahan daraj hai.

A great corpus of work which is boon for us. God bless her.
Unhi ka dialogue.. Khuda unhen karwat karwat Jannat naseeb kare.

[Tarun]

I've sort of finished the first volume of this series.
محنت طلب کتاب ہے۔ ایک پورے معاشرے کو اس ناول کی سطروں میں کشید کیا گیا ہے۔