Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...
) is a Pakistani critic Biography Aamer Hussein official website. 2008. Retrieved 7 February 2011. and
short story writer
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
Early life and education
Hussein grew up in Karachi, where he attended Lady Jennings School and the Convent of Jesus and Mary. He spent most summers with his mother's family in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. He studied in
Ooty
Ooty (), officially known as Udhagamandalam (also known as Ootacamund (); abbreviated as Udhagai), is a city and a municipality in the Nilgiris district of the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located north west of Coimbatore and so ...
,
South India
South India, also known as Dakshina Bharata or Peninsular India, consists of the peninsular southern part of India. It encompasses the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, as well as the union territo ...
, for two years before moving to London in 1970. Hussein is fluent in seven languages: English,
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
, French, Italian, Spanish and Persian.
Career
He read
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
School of Oriental and African Studies
SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...
(SOAS) in London, and later taught Urdu for many years at the SOAS Language Centre. He has since lectured in the English Department at
Queen Mary, University of London
, mottoeng = With united powers
, established = 1785 – The London Hospital Medical College1843 – St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College1882 – Westfield College1887 – East London College/Queen Mary College
, type = Public researc ...
, was Director of the MA programme in National and International Literatures at the
School of Advanced Study
The School of Advanced Study (SAS), a postgraduate institution of the University of London, is the UK's national centre for the promotion and facilitation of research in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in 1994 and is ba ...
's Institute of English Studies (Senate House)(2005–08) and is now Professorial Writing Fellow at the University of Southampton, as well as a professorial research associate at the Centre for the Study of Pakistan. He has also held writing fellowships at the
University of Southampton
, mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour
, type = Public research university
, established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...
and at
Imperial College London
Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
, and served as a judge for the
Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation
The Banipal Prize, whose full name is the Saif Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation, is an annual prize awarded to a translator (or translators) for the published English translation of a full-length literary work in the Arab ...
Commonwealth Prize
Commonwealth Writers (established in 2011) is the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation. It aims to inspire, develop and connect writers across the Commonwealth. Its flagship is a literary award for short stories, the Commonwealth ...
(2007) and the
Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
The ''Independent'' Foreign Fiction Prize (1990–2015) was a British literary award. It was inaugurated by British newspaper ''The Independent'' to honour contemporary fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched i ...
(2002). He is a trustee of the magazine of international contemporary writing ''
Wasafiri
''Wasafiri'' is a quarterly British literary magazine covering international contemporary writing. Founded in 1984, the magazine derives its name from a Swahili word meaning "travellers" that is etymologically linked with the Arabic word " safa ...
''.
Some of Hussein's earliest stories, such as "The Colour of a Loved Person's Eyes", "Little Tales", "Your Children" and "Karima", appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the journals ''
Critical Quarterly
''Critical Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the humanities published by Wiley. The editor-in-chief is Colin MacCabe. The journal notably published the Black Papers on education starting in 1969.
History Early years
''Critical Qua ...
'' and ''Artrage'', and anthologies including '' Colours of a New Day: Writing for South Africa'' (Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), ''God: An Anthology of Fiction'' (Serpent's Tail, 1992) and ''Border Lines: Stories of Exile & Home'' (Serpent's Tail, 1994). His first collection of stories, ''Mirror to the Sun'', was published in 1993. Since then, to increasing critical acclaim from contemporaries such as
Shena Mackay
Shena Mackay FRSL (born 1944) is a Scottish novelist born in Edinburgh. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1996 for '' The Orchard on Fire'', and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction in ...
Amit Chaudhuri
Amit Chaudhuri (born 15 May 1962) is a novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, singer, and music composer from India.
He was Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia from 2006 to 2021, Since 2020, he has ...
and
Tabish Khair
Tabish Khair is an Indian English author and associate professor in the Department of English, University of Aarhus, Denmark. His books include ''Babu Fictions'' (2001), ''The Bus Stopped'' (2004), which was shortlisted for the Encore Award (UK ...
, he has published four further collections – ''This Other Salt'' (1999), ''Turquoise'' (2002), ''Cactus Town'' (2003), and ''Insomnia'' (2007) – as well as the novella, ''Another Gulmohar Tree'' (2009) and the novel ''The Cloud Messenger'' (2011). He has also edited a volume of stories by Pakistani women, ''Kahani'' (2005), which includes his own translations from the Urdu of Altaf Fatima, Khalida Hussain and Hijab Imtiaz Ali. He was made a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...
in 2004, "probably the first writer of Pakistani origin to be elected"."Aamer Hussein: A Tale of Two Languages" , ''Dawn Newspaper'' (Pakistan), 7 October 2007. His reviews have appeared in the ''
Literary Review
''Literary Review'' is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho. The magazine was edited for fourteen years by v ...
'', ''
The Times Literary Supplement
''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp.
History
The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication i ...
'', the ''
New Statesman
The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...
'' and are now regularly seen on the book pages of ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
''. He has also written essays on
Urdu literature
Urdu literature ( ur, , ) is literature in the Urdu language. While it tends to be dominated by poetry, especially the verse forms of the ''ghazal '' غزل and ''nazm '' نظم, it has expanded into other styles of writing, including that of t ...
for ''The Annual of Urdu Studies'' and ''Moving Worlds'', and in 2012 he published a selection of stories in Urdu in the Karachi journal ''Duniyazad''.