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1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteNaiyer Masud was an Urdu short-story writer, Persian scholar and translator from Lucknow whose spare fiction leaves crucial connections unstated. Readers encounter recurring images, uncertain settings and unresolved silences rather than a single answer to decode. Critics have described this approach as artistic obscurity; it is more useful to treat it as an invitation to read patiently and notice what a story makes you feel as well as what it explains.
Who was Naiyer Masud?
Sayed Naiyer Masud Rizvi was born in Lucknow on 16 November 1936 and died there on 24 July 2017. He studied Persian at Lucknow University, earned a doctorate in Urdu from Allahabad University, and retired as a professor of Persian at Lucknow University in 1996, according to Rekhta’s author profile. Penguin describes him as a scholar of Urdu and Persian, a translator and a short-story writer.
Masud began publishing stories in the 1970s. His first story, “Nusrat,” appeared in 1971 in the literary journal Shab Khoon, according to Oxford University Press Pakistan. He translated Kafka into Urdu, and his own stories were translated into English, French, Spanish and Finnish, Penguin reports.
His fiction often draws on an older Lucknow, but OUP Pakistan cautions against reducing it to nostalgia: the stories also attend to ordinary people and their courage amid adversity. The reviewed sources list the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2001 and the Saraswati Samman in 2007 among his honors.
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What does artistic obscurity mean in his fiction?
“Artistic obscurity” is a critical description of how Masud’s stories withhold connective explanation, not a definitive statement of authorial intent. In a 2017 tribute in Scroll, Huzaifa Omair Siddiqi characterizes the prose as stark and bare, shaped by deliberate silences. He reads stories in Masud’s first collection as palimpsests: gaps and excisions remain visible, as if the reader can sense what has been removed. Siddiqi also recounts that Masud drafted extensively and deleted passages; that account is relayed through the tribute, rather than a primary transcript.
Translator Muhammad Umar Memon describes recurring images across the five stories in Seemiya, while emphasizing that the stories remain autonomous and do not form a clearly continuous sequence in time or place. Suppressed links make a definitive meaning difficult to grasp. A recurring image may resonate across stories without supplying a key that unlocks them all.
This uncertainty is not simply a puzzle with one hidden solution. Memon advises readers to be patient, to bring feeling and introspection alongside reason, and to let the work generate interpretations rather than demand a final explanation. As he puts it: “His fiction invites you to enjoy the labyrinth for what it is and, if possible, become it — something like the complete fusion or identity of the observing subject and the observed object.” Memon is a professor emeritus of Urdu literature and Islamic studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the quotation comes from his 2017 interview with The Punch Magazine.
How should you read Naiyer Masud’s stories?
- Follow the image, not just the plot. Notice objects, places or gestures that recur. Their significance may accumulate without resolving into a conventional chain of events.
- Accept missing transitions. If a story does not explain how one scene leads to another, treat that gap as part of its design rather than assuming you missed a clue.
- Attend to mood and response. Ask what a passage makes you feel or remember, as well as what you can infer from its events.
- Leave interpretations provisional. A reading can be meaningful without being the one authoritative answer. Revisit the story if you wish, but do not require every silence to be filled.
What are Masud’s main story collections?
Oxford University Press Pakistan gives this chronology for four collections. Transliteration varies across editions and sources, so the spellings below follow OUP Pakistan’s titles.
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| Collection | OUP Pakistan transliteration | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Seemiya | Seemia | 1984 |
| Itr-e-Kafoor | Itr e Kafoor | 1990 |
| Taos Chaman ki Maina | Taoos e Chaman ki Maina | 1997 |
| Ganjifa | Gunjfa | 2008 |
The year and spellings in this table are as listed by OUP Pakistan; other sources render some titles differently, including Seemiya and Taos Chaman ki Maina.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What is The Occult by Naiyer Masud?
The Occult is Muhammad Umar Memon’s English translation of Seemiya, Masud’s first story collection, published in English in 2013. It offers an entry into the stories’ spare, elusive style rather than a guide to solving them. Penguin also published Naiyer Masud: Collected Stories in 2015, a broader English-language collection. The available sources do not establish that the two editions contain equivalent material.
For readers seeking an Urdu selection, OUP Pakistan describes Intikhab: Naiyer Masood as a representative selection. Its listing gives ISBN 9780199402106 and marks the book out of stock; availability elsewhere or at other times is not established here. Penguin’s pages identify The Occult and Naiyer Masud: Collected Stories as English books, but current retail stock varies and is not confirmed.
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