"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
Ali Amjad was once a recognized name in India’s labor movement. Because of his deep involvement with India’s freedom movement and workers’ rights movement, he was often incarcerated for long periods of time. After migrating to Pakistan, he formally chose the field of labor law for the defense of workers’ rights as a senior lawyer of Pakistan’s supreme court. His Urdu novel Kali Mati (‘Black Soil’) is based on the historic labor strike of 1958 at the Tata Steel plant in Jamshedpur, and is partly autobiographical, as detailed in his Urdu memoir Shakh-e-Nehal-e-Gham (‘A Branch of the Sapling of Sorrow’). The novel also quite brilliantly unpacks the conspiratorial plot leading to the communal violence of Jamshedpur in 1964.
Ali Amjad Translated from Urdu by Arif Ansari
Arif Ansari was born in Lucknow, attended Our Lady of Fatima High School in Aligarh, was educated in electrical engineering at AMU, Aligarh, India and SIU, Carbondale, IL, and lives in Bethesda, MD, USA. He translates Urdu memoirs and novels into English.
