Hajira Masroor

Hajra Masroor ( ur, ; born 17 January 1930, died 15 September 2012) was a Pakistani writer. Masroor established herself with her short fiction stories, known as afsana in Urdu literature. Her elder sister, Khadija Mastoor was also an accomplished short story writer and novelist.

Personal life

Hajra Masroor was born on 17 January 1930 in Lucknow, India to Dr. Syed Tahoor Ali Khan who was a British Army medical doctor. and had suddenly died after a heart attack. She had five sisters including another well-known writer Khadija Mastoor and a younger brother, Khalid Ahmad who also became a poet, playwright and a newspaper columnist. Her family was mainly raised by her mother. She began writing from her early childhood.

After independence of Pakistan in 1947, she and her sisters migrated to Pakistan, and settled in Lahore. An Urdu writer in his book wrote that no one knew Hajra was engaged with famous Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi but once in a literary gathering Ludhianvi pronounced a word wrongly, Hajra criticised him, he got angry and engagement was broken. Later, she married Ahmad Ali Khan, who was the editor of daily Dawn for 28 years. They were married for 57 years before he died in 2007. They have two daughters. She was younger sister of Khadija Mastoor, a noted writer in the history of Urdu literature.

Career

Hajra Masroor began writing short stories from an early age. Her short stories published in the literary magazines had received high appreciation from Urdu