River of Fire by Qurratulain Hyder - 1998 - Translated from Urdu by the author.

The Masterwork of Modern Urdu Fiction.


Urdu is a living language which, according to estimates, is spoken by close to 100 million people around the world. It is the official language of Pakistan, a status which it shares with English. It is also spoken and understood in parts of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Middle East, and many other countries around the world where Pakistani communities have settled.


Qurratulain Hyder’s River of Fire is considered by all the greatest work of the modern Urdu novel. 

Chronicling twenty five hundred years of life in India we are presented with a profound and sweeping collage of princes, paupers,philosophers and many points in between. Prior to completing this I read and loved two of her translated from Urdu short stories. Both short stories are historic fictions.

I am very glad I took the time to read River of Fire.  

My mind is not totally focused right now so I will share with you the quote from TLS on Amazon

“Qurratulain Hyder’s River of Fire encompasses the fates of four recurring characters over two and a half millennia. These characters become crisscrossed and strangely inseparable over different eras, forming and reforming their relationships in romance and war, in possession and dispossession. River of Fire interweaves parables, legends, dreams, diaries, and letters, forming a rich tapestry of history and human emotions and redefining Indian identity. But above all, it’s a unique pleasure to read Hyder’s singular prose style: “Lyrical and witty, occasionally idiosyncratic, it is always alluring and allusive: Flora Annie Steel and E. M. Forster encounter classical Urdu poets; Eliot and Virginia Woolf meet Faiz Ahmed Faiz” (The Times Literary Supplement).

I endorse this book for those wish to expand their knowledge of Indian literature

"Memories of an Indian Childhood" by Qurratulain Hyder - 1965

Qurratulain Hyder (Urdu: قرۃ العین حیدر; January 20, 1928 – August 21, 2007)

"Memories of an Indian Childhood" is just what sounds like.  It centers on the experiences of a Muslim girl, growing up in the days of the British Raj in pre-partition India.  The family is affluent with several servants but not super rich.  Most of the fathers in the neighborhood seem to have high ranking jobs in the government.  All the marriages are arranged and there are rumors of affairs.  The streets of the neighborhood are trodden by various kinds of tradesman.  The wives are always trying to "one up" each other and the latest craze is to get musical lessons in the sitar for your sons or classical dance lessons for your daughters.  The neighborhood is rife with gossip.  A great source of pride to the Indian Grandees is to be, in their mind at least, be thought of as equal by the English higher ups.  The descriptions of the English houses and the ways the wives fill their time was very interesting.  There are tragic events, turn over in the servants, a sad event involving a beloved cat.  There are even motor cycle death circus rides!

This was a good story and I am glad I had the opportunity to read it.  It was originally published in Urdu and translated by the author herself.

About this author

Qurratulain Hyder, also known as Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider (Urdu: قرۃ العین حیدر; January 20, 1928 – August 21, 2007) was an influential Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding literary names in Urdu literature, she is most known for her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire), a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan, that stretches from the 4th century BC to post partition of India. Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer and pioneers of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880–1943). Her mother, Nazar Zahra, who wrote at first as Bint-i-Nazrul Baqar and later as Nazar Sajjad Hyder (1894–1967), was also a novelist and protegee of Muhammadi Begam and her husband Syed Mumtaz Ali, who published her first novel.

She received the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for Patjhar Ki Awaz (Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award for Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar, and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 2005.

A prolific writer (she began to write at the young age of 11), her literary works include some 12 novels and novellas and four collections of short stories. Hyder has also done a significant amount of translation of classics. Her own works have been translated into English and other languages. From Goodreads.