Alamgir Hashmi

Alamgir Hashmi (Urdu: عالمگیر ہاشمی), also known as Aurangzeb Alamgir Hashmi (born 15 November 1951), is an English poet of Pakistani origin.[1] Considered avant-garde, his early and later works were published to considerable critical acclaim and popularity.[2]

Alamgir Hashmi
Native name	عالمگیر اورنگزیب ہاشمی
Born	(1951-09-15) 15 September 1951 Lahore, Pakistan
Occupation	English poet
Education	University of the Punjab, Lahore, M.A. 1972 | University of Louisville, Kentucky, M.A. 1977
Website
www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/hashmi-aurangzeb-alamgir

Alamgir Hashmi is said to have been born in this part of Planet Earth and trained, persuasively, formally and informally, to stay on here. His serious learning began as a child, at the home of his parents, who taught him many fine things of life including reading, writing, and listening, so that he would begin to hear the music of the spheres from early on. Later he chose his company, schools, and places to be according to his abiding interests, and went on to write mainly in different forms of poetry and prose, and to teach (subjects like language, literature, culture, interdisciplinary studies, and theory). Perhaps better known as an English poet, he has been a professor of English and comparative literature, an editor of literary and scholarly journals, a scholar-critic, a broadcaster, a translator, long lapsed lay minstrel, and a weekend canoeist. His work spans nearly all continents, for over four decades now, and he lives wherever his work lives. He acknowledges life as a gift.[3]

He was a practicing transnational humanist and educator in North American, European and Asian universities.[4] He argued for a "comparative" aesthetic to foster humane cultural norms. He showed and advocated new paths of reading the classical and modern texts and emphasized the sublime nature, position and pleasures of language arts to be shared, rejecting their reduction to social or professional utilities.[5] He produced many books of seminal literary and critical importance as well as series of lectures and essays (such as "Modern Letters") in the general press.[6]

Education

• Education: University of the Punjab, Lahore, M.A. 1972;
• University of Louisville, Kentucky, M.A. 1977

Poetry

• The Oath and Amen. Philadelphia, Dorrance, 1976.
• America Is a Punjabi Word. Lahore, Karakorum Range, 1979.
• An Old Chair. Bristol, Xenia Press, 1979.
• My Second in Kentucky. Lahore, Vision Press, 1981.
• This Time in Lahore. Lahore, Vision Press, 1983.
• Neither This Time/Nor That Place. Lahore, Vision Press, 1984.
• Inland and Other Poems. Islamabad, Gulmohar Press, 1984.
• The Poems of Alamgir Hashmi. Islamabad, National Book Foundation, 1992.
• Sun and Moon and Other Poems. Islamabad, Indus Books, 1992.
• A Choice of Hashmi's Verse. Karachi and New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Literary Criticism and Scholarly Editions

• Pakistani Short Stories in English
• Postindependence Voices in South Asian Writings
• The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World
• The Worlds of Muslim Imagination
• Ezra Pound
• Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-definition of a Popular / Counter Culture
• Pakistani Literature: The Contemporary English Writers

Others

• Commonwealth Literature: An Essay Towards the Re-Definition of a Popular/Counter Culture. Lahore, Vision Press, 1983
• The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World. Islamabad, Gulmohar Press, 1988
• Editor, Pakistani Literature: The Contemporary English Writers. New York, World University Service, 2 vols., 1978; revised edition, Islamabad, Gulmohar Press, I vol., 1987
• Editor, with Les Harrop and others, Ezra Pound in Melbourne. Ivanhoe, Australia, Helix, 1983
• Editor, The Worlds of Muslim Imagination. Islamabad, Gulmohar Press, 1986
• Editor, Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English. London, Routledge, 1994

Awards

• The University of the Punjab (Lahore) Scholar, 1970–72, and Certificate of Academic Merit, 1973; first prize
• All-Pakistan Creative Writing Contest, 1972
• Pakistan Academy of Letters Patras Bokhari award, 1985
• Rockefeller Fellow, 1994
• Roberto Celli Memorial award (Italy), 1994
• D.Litt.: University of Luxembourg, 1984
• San Francisco State University, 1984

References

1. Neil Roberts (15 April 2008). A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-99866-3.
2. Amra Raza (12 April 2011). Spatial Constructs in Alamgir Hashmi's Poetry: A Critical Study. Lap Lambert. ISBN 978-3-844-32294-1.
3. http://www.alamgirhashmi.com/
4. "Poet Hashmi Reads At IWP Oct. 29 – University News Service – The University of Iowa". News-releases.uiowa.edu. 19 October 2004. Archived from the original on 14 May 2008. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
5. "Many Worlds", World Literature Today, 83.3 (May/June, 2009)
6. "Alamgir Hashmi", WritersNet Archived 8 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine

See also

• List of Pakistani writers