About Shakeela Akhtar
Shakeela Akhtarwas one of the earliest women writers of Urdu fiction in the twentieth century. Born and buried in Bihar, she was obviously deeply rooted in the local landscape, local dialects and, if we are to use this story as any indication, in the texture of its social relations. I do not claim to know the body of her work, and I am but a fledgling translator. However, I chanced upon ‘Dain’ in the course of my current research on representations of witch bodies in South Asian literature. Since it wasn’t yet available in English translation, I decided to undertake the task myself. She was born into a zamindar family in Ardal, near the river Son in Bihar. The river features prominently in this short story and the author was evidently well-acquainted with the vicissitudes in the lives of fishing communities in the region. While I have not read Akhtar’s own memoir, I have read Balmiki Ram’s Shakeela Akhtar Bahaisiyat Fiction-nigaar (Kitabi Duniya, Dehli, 2014). Ram was a Junior Research Fellow at Patna University when he wrote this analysis of Akhtar’s fiction, and it includes basic biographic details about the author. Akhtar’s date of birth is uncertain. Ram’s book suggests that different scholars have mentioned the years 1912, 1914, 1919 and 1921 while 1916 has been mentioned on the website Rekhta.org. Her first story ‘Rehmat’ was published in 1939 in the journal Adab Latif, Lahore. Elsewhere, Ram mentions that her first story ‘Mothers’ was published in Adab Latif. There are disputes too over the claim that her first collection was first published by Maktaba Urdu, Lahore, when she was just eighteen. However, it is known that she was married to Dr Akhtar Urainvi in 1933 and that her literary life began soon thereafter. According to Ram, her first published book was Darpan (likely published in 1940), the second was Aankh Micholi (1948), third collection was Dain aur Doosre Afsane (1952); fourth was Aag aur Paththar (1962); the fifth book was a set of three novelettes, published as Tinke ka Sahara (1975) and the sixth was Lahu ke Mol (1978) for which she received an Urdu Akademi award. Her last book was Aakhri Salaam (1982). Shakeela Akhtar died on 10th February, 1994. Biographical note of Shakeela Akhtar by translator Annie Zaidi.