A taste of modernist Urdu publishing

In nearly 2019, in the comparatively benign days before Twitter assumed its current avatar X, a viral trend broke out as users from across India began posting their names in the nastaliq script.

- Somak Ghoshal

Soon, #MyNameInUrdu was creating headlines, as Urdu and non-Urdu speakers alike did their bit to revive the dwindling fortunes of the majestic language. Once a living tool of communication, Urdu had, through decades of prejudice and wilful official neglect, become associated with one community alone-or, at best, with the florid idioms of ghazal and shayari.

In her expertly curated anthology Urdu: The Best Stories Of Our Times, scholar and translator Rakhshanda Jalil presents an antidote to Urdu's dimming glory by reclaiming it from misguided populist presumptions. By translating some of the finest stories by contemporary Indian writers, Jalil gives us a taste of the diverse and modernist landscape of