Qurratulain Hyder has a place alongside her exact contemporaries, Milan Kundera and Gabriel Garcia Márquez, as one of the world’s major living authors.—Times Literary Supplement
Qurratulain Hyder: Courtesy Jamia's Premchand Archives & Literary Centre, JMI-New DelhiQurratulain Hyder (1928–2007) was one of the leading writers of Urdu fiction in India. A prose stylist of rare accomplishment, she wrote in both Urdu and English, and her books have been translated into all Indian languages. She was awarded the Bharatiya Gnapinth, India’s highest literary award, in 1989.
The magnum opus of possibly the most acclaimed Urdu novelist of all time…River of Fire tells a completist and syncretistic version of 2,500 years of history in modern-day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—beginning with the Nanda Dynasty on the brink of defeat by the founder of the Mauryan Empire (323 to 185 BCE), and ending in post-Partition despair. But the novel, barreling through the ages, leads up to 1947 with great purpose, the deep past used to understand the suddenness and chaos of Partition.—The Nation
To Urdu fiction what One Hundred Years of Solitude is to Hispanic literature.—The London Times Literary Supplement
. . . a challenging, rewarding author who could make the political realities of her region live on the page.—The National
Qurratulain Hyder is a wonderful writer. She pairs enormous erudition with a careful eye to detail. Hers is one of the most important Indian voices of the twentieth century.—Amitav Ghosh
Qurratulain Hyder has a place alongside her exact contemporaries, Milan Kundera and Gabriel Garcia Márquez, as one of the world’s major living authors.—Times Literary Supplement
