Indian · 1927–2007
Qurratulain Hyder was born in Aligarh to two Urdu novelists, moved to Pakistan after Partition, and returned to India permanently in 1961 after Aag Ka Darya was attacked there for suggesting that Indian civilisation was a continuous shared inheritance rather than a Muslim or Hindu possession. She spent the rest of her life in India, writing in Urdu, editing Imprint magazine, and teaching at Aligarh, Jamia Millia, and the University of California. Aag Ka Darya covers two and a half thousand years through characters who recur across the Buddhist, Mughal, colonial, and post-Partition periods, and Urdu critics rank it with the century's major novels in any language. She translated it into English herself as River of Fire, and called the result a transcreation rather than a translation. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Jnanpith Award, and the Padma Bhushan, and was known throughout Urdu letters simply as Ainee Apa.