As author
Hasan Shah
Hasan Shah was born in India around 1770, and though he worked as a clerk, or munshi, to an English officer, he was in no way aware of the European literary tradition, and probably did not even speak English. Nevertheless, writing in Persian at the age of twenty, exposed only to medieval romances and epics, Hasan Shah created the first modern Indian novel. According to Shah’s English translator, Qurratulain Hyder, The Dancing Girl is an homage to Shah’s late wife, and to traditional Persian ghazals, but in its sensibility, it is entirely modern.