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The [[University of Utah Press]] awards the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize annually "in memory of a celebrated poet and beloved teacher".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uofupress.com/ali-poetry-prize.php|title=Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize|work=uofupress.com|accessdate=18 January 2015}}</ref>
The [[University of Utah Press]] awards the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize annually "in memory of a celebrated poet and beloved teacher".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uofupress.com/ali-poetry-prize.php|title=Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize|work=uofupress.com|accessdate=18 January 2015}}</ref>


==Education==
==Lineage, Early Life and Education==
Agha Shahid Ali was born in the distinguished Agha family of Srinagar Kashmir. Shahid's ancestor had migrated from Kandahar (Afghanistan) during the first half of the 19th Century. The family was of Turkish origin known as "Qazalbaash", a Shia martial race which laid the foundation of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. The word "Agha"(''turkish'')which literally means "Master/Lord" was a title for a civilian or military officer among the Qazalbaash during the Ottoman and Safavid Era. The family was one of the most affluent and highly educated families in Kashmir whose members held high offices of Royal Physicians, Ministers and Bureaucrats during the Maharaja Rule in Kashmir. Shahid's Great-grandfather who was the first matriculate of Kashmir was the only Muslim Minister during the Dogra Rule. Shahid's grandmother Begum Zafar Ali was the first woman matriculate of Kashmir. She had served in the department of education throughout her life as a teacher first and then as an administrator and in her later years as a legislator.She had a tremendous role in nurturing Shahid as a poet. She would often quote poems in English, urdu, Persian ,kashmiri and hindi to shahid as a young boy that made shahid fall in love with poetry. Shahid’s father Agha Ashraf Ali, and mother Sufia Agha were both well known teachers and educationists of the Valley. Shahid did his schooling from Presentation Convent and Burn Hall School , later he was educated at the [[University of Kashmir]] and the [[Hindu College, University of Delhi]].<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/> He earned a Ph.D. in English from [[Pennsylvania State University]] in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the [[University of Arizona]] in 1985.<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/> He held teaching positions at nine universities and colleges in India and the United States.<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/>
Agha Shahid Ali
was educated at the [[University of Kashmir]] and the [[Hindu College, University of Delhi]].<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/> He earned a Ph.D. in English from [[Pennsylvania State University]] in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the [[University of Arizona]] in 1985.<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/> He held teaching positions at nine universities and colleges in India and the United States.<ref name="Jacket Magazine-Agha Shahid Ali"/>


==Works==
==Works==

Revision as of 17:52, 7 August 2015

Agha Shahid Ali
BornFebruary, 1949
Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir
Died8 December 2001
Amherst, Massachusetts
Alma materUniversity of Kashmir Hindu College, University of Delhi Pennsylvania State University (Phd) and University of Arizona (MFA)
Occupation(s)Professor and Poet
Known forNational Book Award 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada
Notable credit(s)The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished and The Rebel's Silhouette

Agha Shahid Ali (February 1949, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir - 8 December 2001 Amherst, Massachusetts) was a poet.[1][2] His collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished, the latter a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001.

The University of Utah Press awards the Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize annually "in memory of a celebrated poet and beloved teacher".[3]

Lineage, Early Life and Education

Agha Shahid Ali was born in the distinguished Agha family of Srinagar Kashmir. Shahid's ancestor had migrated from Kandahar (Afghanistan) during the first half of the 19th Century. The family was of Turkish origin known as "Qazalbaash", a Shia martial race which laid the foundation of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. The word "Agha"(turkish)which literally means "Master/Lord" was a title for a civilian or military officer among the Qazalbaash during the Ottoman and Safavid Era. The family was one of the most affluent and highly educated families in Kashmir whose members held high offices of Royal Physicians, Ministers and Bureaucrats during the Maharaja Rule in Kashmir. Shahid's Great-grandfather who was the first matriculate of Kashmir was the only Muslim Minister during the Dogra Rule. Shahid's grandmother Begum Zafar Ali was the first woman matriculate of Kashmir. She had served in the department of education throughout her life as a teacher first and then as an administrator and in her later years as a legislator.She had a tremendous role in nurturing Shahid as a poet. She would often quote poems in English, urdu, Persian ,kashmiri and hindi to shahid as a young boy that made shahid fall in love with poetry. Shahid’s father Agha Ashraf Ali, and mother Sufia Agha were both well known teachers and educationists of the Valley. Shahid did his schooling from Presentation Convent and Burn Hall School , later he was educated at the University of Kashmir and the Hindu College, University of Delhi.[1] He earned a Ph.D. in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1984, and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona in 1985.[1] He held teaching positions at nine universities and colleges in India and the United States.[1]

Works

Ali expressed his love and concern for his people in The Country Without a Post Office, written with the Kashmir conflict as backdrop.[4] He was a translator of the Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems),[5] and the editor for the Middle East and Central Asia segment of Jeffery Paine's Poetry of Our World.[6]

He compiled the volume Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English. His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals, and his poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and other anthologies. Ghat of the only world written by Amitav Ghosh is a tribute of friend to Agha Shahid Ali. Ali was the close friend of Amitav Ghosh.

Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts Amherst, at the MFA Writing Seminars at Bennington College as well as at creative writing programs at University of Utah, Baruch College, Warren Wilson College, Hamilton College and New York University. He died of brain cancer in December 2001 and was buried in Northampton, Massachusetts.[7]

Influences

Ali was deeply moved by the music of Begum Akhtar. Several niches in his apartment had photos of the people who had deeply influenced his work - Akhtar's photo occupied one of these spaces. The two had met through a friend of Akhtar's when Ali was a teenager and her music became a lasting presence in his life. Features of her ghazal rendition - the presence of wit, wordplay and nakhra(affectation) were found in Ali's poetry as well. However, Amitav Ghosh suspects that the strongest connection between the two rose from the idea that "sorrow has no finer mask than a studied lightness of manner" - traces of which were seen in Ali's and Akhtar's demeanor in their respective lives.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "A Tribute to Agha Shahid Ali". Jacket Magazine. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  2. ^ An interethnic companion to Asian American literature. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2 January 2010. Contemporary South Asian American writers belong primarily to this middle and upper class: Indo-American Agha Shahid Ali, Meena Alexander, Bharati Mukherjee, Vikram Seth, Pakistani American Sara Suleria, Javaid Qazi, Indo-Canadian Rohinton Mistry, Uma Parameswaran, Sri Lankan Canadian Michael Ondaatje, and Indo-Guyanese Canadian Cyril Dabydeen, among others.
  3. ^ "Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize". uofupress.com. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  4. ^ "'The Ghat Of The Only World': Agha Shahid Ali in Brooklyn". Outlook. Retrieved 2 January 2010.
  5. ^ Book Excerptise:Rebel's Silhouette (extended extracts and literary history)
  6. ^ Poetry of Our World (excerpts)
  7. ^ Parveen, Rasheda (2014). "Agha Shahid Ali's English Ghazals and the Transnational Politics of Literary Subversion" (PDF). The Challenge. 23 (1).
  8. ^ Ghosh, Amitav. "The Ghat of The Only World". Amitav Ghosh.

[1]

[2][3]

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  1. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/arts/agha-shahid-ali-52-a-poet-who-had-roots-in-kashmir.html
  2. ^ Parveen, Rasheda (2014). "AGHA SHAHID ALI'S ENGLISH GHAZALS AND THE TRANSNATIONAL POLITICS OF LITERARY SUBVERSION" (PDF). The Challenge. 23 (1).
  3. ^ Rath, Akshaya K. (2010). "Ethno-Sexual Violence: A Study of Agha Shahid Ali's Kashmiri Poetry" (PDF). Kavya Bharati. 22.
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