Ghalib 1797-1869. Volume I: Life and Letters

1969

Brasch PK2198 G4 Z5 A35

London: George Allen and Unwin

The poet, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1797-1869), known simply as Ghalib, grew up in Delhi in the last years of the Mughal Era. He wrote from the age of eleven, and his poems, written in Urdu and Persian, are known as ghazals, which as a genre, have recurring themes of love and separation. Ghalib had first-hand experience of these emotions as he was orphaned at an early age, and lost all seven of his own children in infancy. The performance of a ghazal is still a very strong tradition in the Middle East and South Asia. Ghalib was the foremost poet of his day, and even after his death in 1869, his work continued to resonate. He is still considered ‘an unequalled [and] rare literary legend’.