Intizar Husain has been called the greatest living writer in the Urdu language, a living legend, and Pakistan’s pre-eminent chronicler of change. His voice of compassion and insight is much needed, not only in his troubled homeland but wherever English-speaking readers know about Pakistan only through the mass media.

Born in 1925 in Dibai, India, Husain migrated to Pakistan in 1947. His epic novel of the Partition, Basti, was short-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Inter­national Prize and was recently republished as a New York Review of Books Classics Original. His honors include the 2014 French Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Lifetime Achievement Award presented at the 2012 Lahore Literary Festival.