Shafey Kidwai

Personal Information

Shafey Kidwai (born 8 April 1960) is an Indian academic, bilingual critic, translator, columnist, and author. He is the professor in the Department of Mass Communications at Aligarh Muslim University. He has written twelve books in English and Urdu. His seminal study, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Reason, Religion and Nation (Routledge,2020) has been reviewed many times. He writes for The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Frontline, The Outlook, Indian Literature, The Book Review, The Statesman, and Siyasat.com. Many reputed literary journals of the subcontinent carry his articles regularly and he is often regarded as one of the best modern academic critics in Urdu.

Prof. Shafey Kidwai is the current Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Aligarh Muslim University (from June 26, 2024) . He also serves as the Director of the Sir Syed Academy.

He studied at Lucknow and Varanasi and lives in Aligarh with his wife Shaista Faridi, son Shaghil Kidwai and his elder son Sharif Kidwai works for Apple Inc and settled in the United States . He is a grandson of famous author and scholar Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi. He participates in seminars and literary festivals regularly.Shafey kidwai was a member of the General Council of Sahitya academy and National Council for the promotion of Urdu. He was the convener of Bhasha Samiti(Urdu)Saraswati Samman and Bhartiya Jnanpith.

His 2017 work Sawaneh-e-Sir Syed: Ek Bazdeed - a biography of Sir Syed won the 2019 Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu. A previous work Urdu Literature and Journalism: Critical Perspective was published by Cambridge University Press India. With this well-researched source of information, Shafey Kidwai has turned a new page in the history of Urdu journalism.

In 2018, Kidwai was awarded the Iqbal Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh for his service to promotion of Urdu literature. UP Urdu Academy has also conferred its highest literary honour Khusro Award to him in 2018. He is a bilingual critic and communication expert and his fortnightly column on literature, Culture and media Going Native appears in the Friday Review, The Hindu. He is the chief editor of Aligarh Journal of Communication and he is on the editorial board of several peer-reviewed communicational journals including research journal jointly published by University of Purdue and Kolkata.

Books

• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation ( Routledge,2020)
• Aligarh Institute Gazette An Analytical Study(Brown Books, 2021),
• Sawaneh SirSyed:Ek Bazdeed, Sahita Academy award, 2019, (Brown Books 2017)
• RK Naryan(translation, SahiytaAcademy, 2017)
• MabaadJadded fiction:Pas Sakhtiyati Tanazur(Brown Books2017)
• Urdu Literature and Journalism: Critical Perspective(Cambridge University Press India, 2014)
• National Awakening and Maulana Azad with special reference to Alhilal(Ranch University,2012)
• Meeraji (Monograph, Makers of India Series, Sahita Academy, 1998)
• Khabar Nigari (1988)
• Michal Madhusudan Dutt (translation. Sahiyta Academy,1992)
• The Terminology of Mass Communication in Urdu(national council for promotion of Urdu, New Delhi,2003)

Awards and Honors

• Sahitya Akademi Award (2019): Shafey Kidwai received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for Urdu in 2019 for his biographical work Sawaneh-e-Sir Syed: Ek Bazdeed (2017), a comprehensive biography of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.

• Iqbal Samman (2018): In recognition of his significant contributions to the promotion of Urdu literature, Shafey Kidwai was awarded the Iqbal Samman by the Government of Madhya Pradesh in 2018.

• Khusro Award (2018): Shafey Kidwai was honored with the highest literary accolade of the UP Urdu Academy, the Khusro Award, in 2018 for his exceptional work in Urdu literature.

These accolades reflect Shafey Kidwai's profound influence and contributions to Urdu literature, journalism, and academic criticism.

See also

• Abdul Majid Daryabadi, grandfather of Shafey Kidwai