Musharraf Ali Farooqi (born July 26, 1968, Hyderabad, Pakistan) is an author, novelist and translator. He received his early education in Hyderabad, at St. Bonaventure’s High School and the Model School and College in Hyderabad, Sindh, and proceeded to attend NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi for three years, not finishing his degree.
His critically acclaimed translation of the 1871 version of Dastan-e Amir Hamza (Adventures of Amir Hamza) by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami was published in October 2007 by the Modern Library. He published the first book of a projected 24-volume translation of the world's first magical fantasy epic, Hoshruba, Hoshruba in 2009. He is the author of the novel The Story of a Widow (Knopf, 2008) and a children's picture book titled The Cobbler's Holiday: or Why Ants Don't Wear Shoes (Roaring Brook Press, 2008). He is developing the Urdu Project Urdu Project, an online resource for the study of Urdu language and literature. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
The Story of a Widow (Alfred A. Knopf, Summer 2008)
The Cobbler’s Holiday: or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes (Roaring Brook Press, Fall 2008)
Translations
The Adventures of Amir Hamza, originally written in Urdu by Ghalib Lakhnavi (Random House/Modern Library, 2007)
Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, originally published (1883-1893) in Urdu as Tilism-e Hoshruba by Muhammad Husain Jah and Ahmed Husain Qamar. (Urdu Project/Random House India, 2009)
Forthcoming
Rococo and Other Worlds - Selected Poetry of Afzal Ahmed Syed (Wesleyan University Press Poetry Series, Spring 2010)
The Amazing Moustaches of Moochhander the Iron Man & Other Stories (Puffin India, 2010)
The Beast - Translation of Syed Muhammad Ashraf's Urdu novella "Numberdar ka Neela" (Tranquebar Press/Westland Books, 2010)
The Rabbit Rap - A Graphic Fable
Critical essays
"The Simurgh Feather Guide to the Poetics of Dastan-e Amir Hamza Sahibqiran" (Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol 15, 2000)
"The Poetics of Amir Hamza's World: Notes on the Ghalib Lakhnavi / Abdullah Bilgrami Version" (Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol 24, 2009)