Book review: An illustrious literary magazine

To this day Savera has stood up to its reputation thanks to the impecunious commitment of its publishers and editors along the line, to the cause of literature, art and culture which it has avidly championed through its ‘words and behaviour’

Savera is an illustrious literary magazine with a history of continual publication dating back to the year 1945. Starting as a harbinger of progressivism in Urdu literature, Savera has had the distinction of being edited by celebrities like Nazir Ahmad Chaudhri (the pioneer and publisher of the magazine who also edited its first issue), Sahir Ludhianvi, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Ahmad Rahi, Muhammad Hanif Ramay, and the distinguished duo of its current editors.

Here one is tempted to quote Khalid Hasan who thought that “Urdu literature will forever remain in the debt of men like Nazir Ahmad Chaudhry and his Naya Idara, which published Savera, his uncle Chaudhry Barkat Ali of Adab-e-Latif and Muhammad Tufail of Naqoosh but for whom much of progressive Urdu literature would have remained unpublished”.

To this day Savera has stood up to its reputation thanks to the impecunious commitment of its publishers and editors along the line, to the cause of literature, art and culture which it has avidly championed through its ‘words and behaviour’.

The present issue encompasses a broad spectrum of literary material configuring essays, short stories, ghazal, nazm, and a serialised fictional narrative (‘novel’). Aqeel Solangi’s design of its dust cover together with Khurshid Rizvi’s essay on the pre-Islamic Arabic literature and Muhammad Salim-ur-Rahman’s essay on poet Jafar Zatalli’s (d.1713) prose and verse collection titled Zatal Nama, Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s short story PhooloN-wali Pahari, Mahmood Ahmad Qazi’s Qissa Imdad Ali Ka, Tahir Iqbal’s Ghulama, Muhammad Salim-ur-Rahman’s Bekar Mabash, ghazal of Zulfiqar Ahmad Tabish, Qazi Habib-ur-Rahman, Zia-ul-Hasan, Nazm of Ayub Khawar, Gulzar, Tanvir Qazi, Slim Sohail, Hammad Niazli, Ahmad Ata, AmbreeN Salahuddin, and Riaz Ahmad (Punjabi), M Salim-ur-Rahman’s ‘prose-poetic’ translation of Eric Pankey’s poem Returning in Winter (after Zeslaw Milosz), and Aslam Sirajuddin’s fictional narrative Talashe-wujood dar atraaf-e-chand (conceived on the Joycean paradigm) serve to enrich the form and content of the magazine besides lending it an aura of distinction among its contemporaries.

Savera

Editors: Muhammad Salim-ur-Rahman, Riaz Ahmad

Publisher: Qausain,

15-Circular Road, Urdu Bazaar, Lahore

Pages: 288; Price: Rs.325/-