Agha Shahid Ali
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Agha Shahid Ali (Urdu: آقا شاھد علی; February 4, 1949, New Delhi - 8 December 2001, Amherst, Massachusetts) was an American poet of Kashmiri Indian ancestry and upbringing.
His poetry collections include A Walk Through the Yellow Pages, The Half-Inch Himalayas, A Nostalgist's Map of America, The Country Without a Post Office, Rooms Are Never Finished (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was Call Me Ishmael Tonight, a collection of English ghazals. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and many other anthologies.
Ali was also a translator of Faiz Ahmed Faiz (The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems) and editor (Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English). He was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form in America.
Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as creative writing programs at University of Utah, Baruch College, Warren Wilson College, Hamilton College and New York University. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Amitav Ghosh, a renowned English author and Ali's close friend wrote about him after his death in 'The Ghat of the Only World'.
[edit] External links
- Agha Shahid Ali at the Academy of American Poets
- Brief biography at the University of Massachusetts
- Agha Shahid Ali prize at the University of Utah
- Ali reads "The Purse-Seiner Atlantis," from the Paris Review
- Amitav Ghosh reminiscing about Agha Shahid Ali at [1]
