Intizar Husain
Intizar Husain (1925–2016) was a journalist, short-story writer, and novelist, widely considered one of the most significant fiction writers in Urdu. Born in Dibai, Bulandshahr, in British-administered India, he migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and lived in Lahore. Besides
Basti, he was the author of two other novels,
Naya Gar (The New House), which paints a picture of Pakistan during the ten-year dictatorship of the Islamic fundamentalist General Zia-ul-Haq, and
Agay Sumandar Hai (Beyond Is the Sea), which juxtaposes the spiraling urban violence of contemporary Karachi with a vision of the lost Islamic realm of al-Andalus. Collections of Husain’s celebrated short stories have appeared in English under the titles
Leaves,
The Seventh Door,
A Chronicle of the Peacocks, and
An Unwritten Epic.