Asghar Wajahat

Asghar Wajahat is a former professor of Hindi literature at Jamia Millia Islamia, and a Hindi writer loved most in India for his biting plays and acerbic prose. He has written stories, dramas, novels, and travelogues, and has received the Vyas Samman Award in 2022 for his recent play ‘Mahabali’. Among some his other accolades are the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for playwriting and the Katha UK award for the best novel of the year. The shape, length, and affects of his stories rely on oral traditions of storytelling in India.

Articles by Asghar Wajahat

The Spirits of Shah Alam Camp by Asghar Wajahat, trans. by Aditya Vikram

On whose face do the shadows of a divided history fall? This short story by Asghar Wajahat – translated from Hindi by Aditya Vikram – observes a refugee camp set up in the aftermath of the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat, India, haunted by the spirits of lost loved ones. Writing in an unabashedly Muslim voice, the story is narrated similarly to a dastaan, an oral form of Urdu storytelling from North India, and examines the psychic wounds of marginalisation based on faith, class, and gender pervading a rotting democracy. With an illustration by Simone Khanyi Hadebe.

Subscribe to Wasafiri and get benefits such as saving 18% off the cover price.

Learn more

Newsletter

Sign-up to our newsletter and receive all our latest news straight to your inbox.