Urdu literature prides itself on the presence of many significant female voices, both in fiction and poetry. I would like to investigate whether women’s writing in Urdu is merely one homogenous category, or are the women in the Urdu literary scene creative writers first and women writers afterwards? The case of Bilqees Zafirul Hasan would be an interesting one to explore, as she blossomed into a full-fledged writer only about the time when she was in her fifties, and had mothered six children. She gave up writing after marriage and devoted herself to the care of her husband and family. What were her possible concerns in turning to poetry? Bilqees Zafirul Hasan (b. 1938) has published two collections of poems in Urdu, Geela Eendhan (“Damp Fuel”), 1996, and Sholon Ke Darmiyan (“Amidst the Flames”) in 2004. A volume of short stories, Weerane Aabad Gharon Ke (“The Wildernesses of Flourishing Homes”), came out in 2008. She also writes plays. Very little of her work is available in translation, although her entire body of work deserves to be translated into English, and into Hindi and other Indian languages. This interview (conducted over several sessions in 2008) aims to present an introduction to the poetry of Bilqees Zafirul Hasan, who has not received the attention she deserves. It includes many excerpts from her beautiful poetry which may not necessarily dwell on a woman’s identity.

Urdu literature prides itself on the presence of many significant female voices, both in fiction and poetry. Is women’s writing in Urdu merely one homogenous category? Are the women in the Urdu literary scene creative writers first and women writers afterwards? The case of Bilqees Zafirul Hasan would be an interesting one to explore, as she blossomed into a full fledged writer only when she was in her fifties, and had mothered six children. What were her possible concerns in turning to poetry? In other words, what did she find so pressing in her existence, that she took recourse to (or shall we say found?) poetry to be the answer to her sense of disquiet?

Bilqees Zafirul Hasan (b. 1938) has published two collections of poems in Urdu, Geela Eendhan (“Damp Fuel”), 1996 and Sholon Ke Darmiyan (“Amidst the Flames”) in 2004. A volume of short stories, Weerane Aabad Gharon Ke1 (“The Wildernesses of Flourishing Homes”), came out in 2008. She also writes plays. Much of Bilqees’s earliest work was never properly compiled, and most of her short stories form part of her writing from her pre-marital days. Bilqees gave up writing after marriage and devoted herself to the care of her husband and family. Playing the caring mother and devoted wife did not dull her creative sensibility; her awareness of life probably underwent a process of sharpening, for when she began to write poetry again, her poems showed a boldness of attitude, which, however, did not seem belligerent and reflected a sense of goodwill towards fellow humans. The angst of the middle-class woman who is exploited not just by society, but, often (maybe inadvertently) by her own children and parents is expressed subtly through a conversational, easy-going Urdu idiom. The beauty of Bilqees’s poetry lies more in her sweet, kindly manner than in the more popular, (so-called feminist) aggressive and complaining tone adopted by others. Very little of her work is available in translation, although her entire body of work deserves to be translated into English, and into Hindi and other Indian languages. She is one of the woman poets anthologized in the two-volume Oxford India Anthology of Modern Urdu Literature (2008) edited by Mehr Afshan Farooqi.

Commonwealth Literature Journal, Aravind Adiga, Cultural Production, Commercial Mediations, Indian Fictional Writing, South-Asian Cultural Commodities, Contemporary Corruption, Social Responsibility, Postcolonial Literatures, Foreign Cultures, Commercial Implications, Postcolonial Production.