Ghulam Abbas (writer)

Ghulam Abbas was born on the 17th of November 1909 in Amritsar, British Punjab into a Pashtun family of the Sadozai tribe tracting its roots to Afghanistan. His family shifted to Lahore when he was still a child. He got his Intermediate degree as late as 1944 from the Punjab University because he began to earn a living as a writer early on and couldn't complete his education.{{Cite web |title=Ghulam Abbas (1909-1982) |url=https://www.dareechah.com/urdu_fiction_writers/ghulam_abbas |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250103193910/https://www.dareechah.com/urdu_fiction_writers/ghulam_abbas |archive-date=3 January 2025}}

Ghulam Abbas could speak Urdu, Punjabi, English and Persian.

In his early career, Ghulam Abbas worked as a publisher with Maulvi Mumtaz Ali, and specialized in the translation of literature for children.

In 1938, Ghulam Abbas moved to Delhi, becoming the editor of All India Radio’s magazine Awaaz. Following the 1947 Partition, he'd work for Radio Pakistan, initiating its magazine Aahung, and would work with both Radio Pakistan and BBC London over the next years.

Ghulam Abbas began to publish his original works, mostly short stories, in the 1930s, and in 1960 received the Adamjee Literary Award for his work Jaaray ki Chaandni.

His first wife was named Zakira and he had five children, four daughters and a son. His second wife was a Greek-Scottish-Romanian woman named Christian Vlasto (renamed Zainab) with whom he had a son and three daughters.

Ghulam Abbas had a large private library with some 20,000 books on all subjects, while his other hobbies included playing music, having mastered musical instruments such as the guitar, the violin and the flute, as well playing chess, including having competitions with fellow writers such as Noon Meem Rashid.{{Cite web |last=Peerzada |first=Salman |date=29 May 2014 |title=‘Ghulam Abbas was a shy but deep person’ |url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1109153 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250103195532/https://www.dawn.com/news/1109153 |archive-date=3 January 2025 |website=Dawn News}}

Ghulam Abbas has also written stories, plays and poems for children, his main field is fiction. He has a very high position in modern Urdu fiction. He takes the plot of the fiction from around him and writes it so skillfully that the reader gets lost in its details. And is shocked at the end of it. Their characters belong to the real world. Their language is simple. The narration is lively and engaging. Technically, his fictions are impeccable.

At first glance, his story seems very simple, but as we reflect on it, we see a great depth of meaning in it. The story "Overcoat" (one of his prestigious works) is very simple on the surface, but if you read it carefully, it reveals many layers of deep social meaning.

Ghulam Abbas's characters are not pre-planned, but he picks up a few ordinary people from some class and corner of their society and environment and then presents them with the whole truths of their lives and all the good and bad details of their surroundings. They make their characters into ideals, not consciously convincing them to put a stamp of good on their personality, but in the world, as is usually the case, that good is often in decline and evil is rampant. Ghulam Abbas presents these things in exactly the same way. There is no extremism or idealism here, but the reflection of human nature is found in his works.

There are colors of life in his art. When one gets a sense of problems and life he brings is such a deep analysis, that they bring the truth reader in front of the reader in the same way as in reality. He does not care about their egos.

Rather, he brings forth the secrets of life.O level Syllabus A, book by Amir Waheed (translation)

He received the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, the third-highest civilian award of Pakistan, in 1967.

• Jazeera-e-Sukhanwaran (published 1937)
• Anandi (Marketplace) (a Bollywood film Mandi (1983) was based on this Ghulam Abbas's short story)[https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1844723/ Mandi (1983) Indian film based on Ghulam Abbas's short story on IMDb website] Retrieved 17 January 2018
• The Women's Quarter and Other Stories from Pakistan (published 1984)
• Intikhab Ghulam Abbas (Selection of Stories by Ghulam Abbas) (compiled by Asif Farrukhi)
• Gondni wala Takiya Novel{{Cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32734197-gondniwala-takia|title = Gondniwala Takia / گوندنی والا تکیہ}}

{{reflist}}

• {{IMDb name|1844723|Ghulam Abbas}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abbas, Ghulam}}

Category:1909 births

Category:1982 deaths

Category:Writers from Amritsar

Category:Pashtun writers

Category:20th-century Pakistani writers

Category:Urdu-language short story writers

Category:Pakistani children's writers

Category:Pakistani people of Afghan descent