Through the Lens of Urdu

Abstract

This essay examines Adabī dunyā, or Literary World, to argue for a dialectical relationship between world literature and the Urdu magazine. Adabī dunyā carved a niche for itself in a competitive Indian magazine ecology by positioning itself as a worldly and world-class magazine in terms of its content and material form. How this publication circulated world literature was inspired by the educational impetus of the ‘ilmī o adabī magazine genre (roughly translatable as “educational and literary”). Adabī dunyā mediated readers’ appreciation of world authors by relying on a range of forms such as the survey essay, image, and original Urdu texts inspired by those authors. By focusing on its representation of Dante Alighieri, I show how the magazine sought to nurture a multidimensional relationship between Indian readers and foreign writers. In so doing, Adabī dunyā produced a local iteration of world literature centered on Urdu culture.