The Dissident Voice: Poems of N.M. Ráshed

By Nasser Ibrahim Rashid

One of the major modern poets of the Urdu language in the twentieth century, N.M. R shed lived and wrote at a time of tremendous upheaval both within and outside the Islamic world--the period between the two World Wars. Viewed as anarchic for his passionate defense of democracy and individualism, R shed was responsible for spearheading a modernist movement in Urdu literature. His many critics failed to see that his apparent religious heterodoxy was itself a version of faith, often reflected in his verse as an intense, if tragic, spiritual struggle expressed in earthly terms. Attacking a tradition while remaining within it, R shed turned the ghazal, primarily a love lyric and itself a subversive verse form, into a powerful weapon of protest. A composite picture of the world and works of R shed is presented here for the first time in English translation with poems drawn from various collections of his verse.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195627415
• ISBN13: 9780195627411
• Release Date: March 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 138 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.4"