Joginder Paul (1925-2016) was born in Sialkot, now in Pakistan. His first short story was published in the well-known Urdu journal Saqi in 1945, while his first collection of short stories, Dharti ka Kaal, based on his lived experience of East Africa, was published in 1962. He published ten collections of short stories, including Khula, Khodu Baba ka Magbara and Bastiyan. Amongst his novels are Ek Boond Labu Ki, Nadeed, Paar Pare, and Khwabrau. He has four collections of flash fiction or afsanche, a genre with which he is known to have enriched Urdu fiction significantly. A number of his novels and short stories have been translated into Hindi, English and other languages in India and abroad. Paul is a recipient of many important literary honours, including the SAARC Lifetime Award, Iqbal Samman, Urdu Academy Award, All India Bahadur Shah Zafar Award, Shiromani Award, and Ghalib Award. He was also honoured at Qatar with an international award for contributing to creative writing in Urdu. His fiction has received a lot of critical acclaim, and many Urdu journals in India and Pakistan have published special issues on him.
Chandana Dutta (b. 1969) holds a Ph. D. from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has been Assistant Director for Katha Vilasam, the publishing wing of Katha, an organization that pioneered translations in India. She set up the publishing outfit Indialog of which she was Chief Editor. She was Editor, Indian Horizons, a quarterly journal on art and culture published by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, New Delhi. She has been Adjunct Faculty for the Masters Programme in Publishing at the Ambedkar University Delhi. She translates from Hindi and Bangla into English. She is the author of My Other Half: Krishna Paul in Conversation with Chandana Dutta (2019).
Abu Zahir Rabbani (b. 1972) is a new generation critic-scholar in Urdu. He takes deep interest in the Urdu language and literature, its poetry and particularly in its fiction. He has completed his MA, M. Phil and Ph. D from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is currently Assistant Professor of Urdu at Dyal Singh College, New Delhi. He is the author of the acclaimed book Joginder Paul ki Afsana Nigari (2015) which has won awards from the Urdu Academy Delhi, the Bihar Urdu Academy and the Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy. He has co-translated and co-edited the book Kahani ka Tana Bana (2019), a collection of Joginder Paul's non-fictional writings. He has several research papers and critical articles to his credit.
Sometime in 1945 when Joginder Paul published his first short story in the college magazine in Sialkot, he was a young man about to step into the whirls of life. He just didn't know that yet. A year or so afterwards, he would have to give up his beloved Sialkot and traverse the long distance to Ambala to set up a new life. And very soon after that, he would undertake another long journey, this time by sea, to the unknown climes of Nairobi in Kenya. Through these, and many other passages in life, Paul continued to actively engage with his fiction, and non-fiction, creating some of the most powerful and experiential stories that remain as relevant today as when they were first written.
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