Ghalib

Mehr Afshan Farooqi grew up in Allahabad, India. A multiple gold medalist from Allahabad University, Farooqi is currently Professor of Urdu and South Asian Literature at the University of Virginia. Her research publications address complex issues of Urdu literary culture particularly in the context of modernity. She is interested in bilingualism and how it impacts creativity. Farooqi is also a well-known translator, anthologist and columnist. She has recently published, Ghalib: A Wilderness at my Door Step, A Critical Biography (Penguin/Allen Lane/ January 2021). Mehr expects to continue her work on Ghalib. She is currently working on a memoir, A Book of Hearts. Farooqi writes a featured column on Urdu literature past and present in the Dawn.

Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib was born in Agra in the closing years of the eighteenth century. He wrote in both Urdu and Persian and was also a great prose stylist. Ghalib fascinates his readers for many reasons, but one of the most noted qualities in Ghalib was that he was a careful, even strict, editor of his work. It is said that he discarded or disregarded more than half of his Urdu verses. These verses were forgotten for long, until as late as 1918, in the library of the princely state of Bhopal. In 1921, they were edited and published as a new Divan-e Ghalib.
In Flowers in a Mirror, Mehr Afshan Farooqi continues her research in the strain of her first book, A Wilderness at My Doorstep. She examines Ghalib’s approach to his work, the world in which he lived and composed, and ultimately, his genius. She selects 30 ghazals from the rejected corpus, translates them into English and provides an erudite, sparkling critical commentary. Through this book, she highlights the significance of marginalized poetry and the need to reinstate the forgotten verses in our lives and hearts.

A well-respected Ghalib scholar takes us on a fascinating tour through some of her favourites from among the large number of verses the poet did not include in his published divan. But as Prof. Farooqi makes clear through her thoughtful and thoroughly researched discussion, if we ignore these unpublished verses, we miss out on some real poetic pleasures. This innovative work belongs on the bookshelf of every lover of the classical ghazal.



Frances Pritchett