Zaheer Kashmiri

Zaheer Kashmiri (1919–1994) was a Pakistani Urdu poet, critic and film writer, a leading voice of the Progressive Writers' Movement. Born Peer Dastgeer Zaheer on 21 August 1919 at Amritsar, into a family that had migrated generations earlier from Srinagar, Kashmir, he took an MA in English and began writing poetry at eleven. He became editor of Savera, the Progressive Writers Association's literary magazine — serving on its board alongside Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi — and wrote the landmark essay "Meri Zindagi, Mera Fann" (Savera, 1951). Reaching Lahore around Partition, he worked in films — story and direction of Teen Phool (1961), stories for Anjam (1957) and Sheikh Chili (1958), lyrics for seven films — and from 1959 wrote a column in the daily Ehsaan under the pen name Majnu. His poetry collections include Azmat-e-Aadam (1955), Taghazzul, Chiragh-e-Aakhir-e-Shab, Raqs-e-Junoon (1982) and Auraaq-e-Musawwir; his critical work Adab Ke Maaddi Nazariye argued for a materialist reading of literature. His ghazal turns the classical idiom toward the progressive cause: the lover's lamp becomes the last lamp of the night, burning so that after it there is light, not darkness. He died in Lahore on 12 December 1994; the Pride of Performance was conferred on him after his death.