Shamsur Rahman Faruqi

Acclaimed writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqi is also modern Urdu's most celebrated critic. He was editor and publisher of the highly regarded literary journal Shabkhoon, and is the author of a landmark four-volume study of the poet Mir Taqi Mir, and another four-volume work on Urdu's immense oral romance, Dastan-e Amir Hamza. He received the prestigious Saraswati Samman in 1996 for his contribution to Urdu literature. The Mirror of Beauty, originally published in Urdu to huge acclaim, is his first novel.