Urdu crime fiction, 1890-1950 : an informal history
- Hyderabad : Orient BlackSwan, 2023
- xiv, 282 p. ; ill. , 22 cm
Includes indexes and bibliographical references.
Humankind, I like to believe, can be divided into two groups: one group swears by science fiction, the other cherishes only mysteries. I belong to the latter.' Thus begins C. M. Naim's homage to the writers who once provided generations of Urdu-speaking mystery-lovers hours of sleepless delight. Meticulously researched, this 'informal history' unravels how crime fiction first originated in Europe and North America in the nineteenth century, how Urdu writers responded to this new stimulus, and the rapid emergence of what then became the jāsūsī adab in Urdu. Described as 'wonder-inducing' and 'sleep-depriving, ' bearing titles like Khūnī Chhatrī (The Murderous Umbrella), Tilismī Burj (The Magic Turret), and Mistrīz af Dihlī (The Mysteries of Delhi), Urdu thrillers sold in the thousands. Aficionados of the Netflix series Lupin may be surprised to learn that a century ago, Maurice Leblanc's gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, was adored by Urdu readers in his desī avatār, Bahram, 'transcreated' by Zafar Omar in a 1916 bestseller that made Bahram a household name. We discover Tirath Ram Ferozepuri, the prodigious translator of mysteries and thrillers--114-odd titles, spanning 60,000 pages. We meet Nadeem Sahba'i, of unfettered imagination, who produced masterpieces of Urdu pulp fiction.
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History and criticism Detective and mystery stories