Anniversary tributes for Nagi planned

Magazine will contain Nagi’s incomplete novel.

LAHORE: A special edition of Danishwar, a literary magazine started by Anis Nagi, will be published in September to pay him a tribute at his first death anniversary. This will be the first issue to be published after Nagi’s death.

The edition will contain a collection of appreciative and critical pieces on Nagi. It will also contain his incomplete novel, Sahiban, which was in progress at the time of his death in October 2010. The appreciative and critical pieces have been contributed by Dr Shaheen Mufti, Nasir Zaidi, Mashkoor Hussain Yaad, Atta-ul-Haq Qasmi, Dr Anwar Sajjad, Dr Saleem Akhtar, and Anwar Sadeed.

Danishwar’s editor and Nagi’s widow, Iffat Anis told The Express Tribune that the issue will likely come out by September 20. She said that the magazine will now be published twice a year instead of every three months.

Nagi’s portray the alienation of the individual in the post independence social structure. In addition to writing fiction, non-fiction, translations and criticism, he was prolific in the fields of culture, psychology, and history. He wrote 14 volumes of poetry and 67 books in all. In 1980s, he inaugurated a literary journal which introduced and reflected the new trends in Urdu literature. He translated many international writers to Urdu. He is known to have introduced Borges, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Kafka, Sartre and Camus to Urdu readers.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th,  2011.