Forum Pakistan

(Circle of Connoisseurs of Art) It was founded in 1939 in Lahore by the famous poets N.M. *Rashid and Miraji (1912-49) as an alternative to the All-India Progressive Writers Association (PWA) (1936). The group calls itself 'a circle' in order to emphasize the modesty of their aims and unpretentious nature of their activities that included promoting creative and artistic fiction in *Urdu literature. The circle engages in literary experiments in imitation of the Western avant-garde. The poets favoured vers libre and blank verse to open new possibilities for artistic self-expression. The circle became an artistic centre attracting such poets as Muhammad Din Tasir (1902-50), Yusuf Zafar (b. 1914), Qayum Nazar (b. 1914) and Akhtar al-Iman (b. 1915). In literary criticism, the most consistent follower of the 'Connoisseurs of Art' was Muhammad Hasan Askari. Later, orne prose writers joined the circle: Sadat Hasan *Manto, Aziz * Ahmad, Mumtaz Shirin, Hajra *Masrur, Kbadija *Mastur. The circle has always been open for literary discussions, particularly after the PPWA *Pakistan Progressive Writers Association had been banned. At that time, the contradictions between the 'Connoisseurs of Art' and 'Progressive Writers' became increasingly less acute. Today both these trends complement one another within a broader movementJadid Adab ('Contemporary Literature').

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Glebov, A. Sukhochev, 'Urdu Literature', Moscow, 1967 (in Russian); Muhammad Sadiq, 'A History of Urdu Literature', London, 1964, 1badat Barewlwi, 'Jadid Shairi', Aligarh, 1983.