Agha Shahid Ali

Agha Shahid Ali (आगा शाहीद अली) (4 February 1949, New Delhi - 8 December 2001, Amherst, Massachusetts) was an English poet of Kashmiri ancestry and upbringing.

His poetry collections include "A Walk Through the Yellow Pages", "The Half-Inch Himalayas", "A Nostalgist's Map of America", "The Country Without a Post Office", "Rooms Are Never Finished" (finalist for the National Book Award, 2001). His last book was "Call Me Ishmael Tonight", a collection of English ghazals. His poems are featured in "American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets" (2006) and many other anthologies.

Ali was also a translator of Faiz Ahmed Faiz ("The Rebel's Silhouette; Selected Poems") and editor ("Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English"). He was widely credited for helping to popularize the ghazal form in America.

Ali taught at the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, as well as creative writing programs at University of Utah, Warren Wilson College and New York University. He died peacefully, in his sleep, of brain cancer in December, 2001. He was laid to rest in Northampton, Massachusetts.

External links

*Agha Shahid Ali at the [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/127 Academy of American Poets]
*Brief biography at the [http://www.umass.edu/wgbycourses/AghaAli.htm University of Massachusetts]
*Agha Shahid Ali prize at the [http://www.uofupress.com/Agha-Shahid-Ali University of Utah]
*Ali reads "The Purse-Seiner Atlantis," from the [http://www.theparisreview.org/viewaudio.php/prmMID/5245 Paris Review]
*Amitav Ghosh reminiscing about Agha Shahid Ali at [http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/17/04_Ghosh.pdf]