Mirza Ghalib was the pen name of Urdu poet Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan who was born in colonial India in 1797. Considered one of the most popular and influential poets of the later days of the Persian Mughal Era before British rule took full hold, he wrote several ghazals – poetic forms that incorporate rhyming couplets with a refrain, each line ...
A contemporary novelist and poet, Vikram Seth spent his early years in India and London, graduating from the prestigious Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He went on to further studies at Stanford University where he achieved a master’s degree (economics) in 1978, following this up with some post-graduate study at Nanking University in China. After Nanking he embarked on the long ...
Kazi Nazrul Islam came in to this world in 1899 in Bengal (the Burdwan district) into an influential Muslim quazi (justice) family. His father was the imam and also the caretaker of their local mosque so it was clear what path this young boy would follow. Attendance at a religious school saw him study Islamic philosophy, biology, theology, ...
A sentimental and children’s poet, James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) has established himself as of America’s literary giants. Born the third in a line of six children in a simpler time, the life of James Whitcomb Riley was characterized by his peculiarities. His lack of education would bring one to believe that his work would be inapt for the poetic world, but the ...
Sharon Olds (Born 1942) is known for the bluntness in her poetry. Raised Calvinist but fully atheist, one will quickly realize that there is an aggressive opposition to the religious and socially acceptable standards. Where this is admirable to a point, especially in poetic works where one strives to go beyond that of the common man and definitively wants to ...
