Fabulous Machinery for the Curious : : the Garden of Urdu Classical Literature

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Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Fabulous machinery for the curious	4-week checkout	Due 05-26-2024

Introduction -- Qissa 1 : the Ingenious Farkhanda and the two conditions : translation of Char Gulshan by Rai Beni Narayan -- Qissa 2 : the adventures of a soldier : translation of Qissa Sipahizada by Khushdil Kiratpuri -- Qissa 3 : Chhabili the innkeeper : translation of Chhabili Bhattiyari by unknown author -- Qissa 4 : Azar Shah and Saman Rukh Bano : translation of Nau Aaeen-e Hindi by Mehr Chnd Khatri Mehr -- Qissa 5 : the victim of malice : translation of Qissa-e Maqtool-e Jafa by Amiruddin Khan Maani -- Qissa 6 : a girl named King Agar : translation of Qissa Agar o Gul by Saadat Khan Nasir -- About the authors and narrators.
"As the present volume offers six translations from the qissa genre, it is useful to understand the nature of the qissa genre; or rather, qissa's non-genre nature. In Urdu, the word qissa is used for both short and long narrative literature. It encompasses works in both prose and verse. When looking at narratives that belong to qissa literature, one is struck by their diversity. These narratives include everything from folk literature, to historical narratives, to adventure tales, picaresque narratives, comic and tragic stories, accounts of pilgrimage, and religious texts. Their structure varies from frame and interior stories, to linear narratives, to collections of disparate tales, joined loosely together. Each such narrative enriches the possibilities of the qissa, while at the same time making it more difficult to describe the genre neatly. Stories must have played a paramount social role in a society for it to create such a profusion of narratives meant for narration and retelling. Did the qissa literature grow from an impulse to give a story-like structure to every narrative? This diversity of texts published as qissas certainly suggests that. This extraordinary engagement with stories at a social level becomes clearer when we take a closer look at the qissas and realize that a number of them have a function beyond idle entertainment. To their audience, they offered everything, from social guidance, physical well-being, and moral training. The qissas were meant to be life's finishing school. The riches of this literature can be sampled in the six qissas presented here in their first English language translation"-- Provided by publisher.

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