Agha Shahid Ali

A Kashmiri American Muslim, Agha Shahid Ali is best known as a poet in the United States and identified himself as an American poet writing in English. Ali wrote nine poetry collections and a book of literary criticism (T.S. Eliot as Editor, 1986), as well as translated a collection of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry (The Rebel’s Silhouette, 1992) and edited Ravishing DisUnities: Real Ghazals in English (2000), a collection of ghazals (a Persian poetic form employing repetition, rhyme, and couplets). Ali’s collection, Rooms Are Never Finished (2001), was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2001; The Veiled Suite (2009), which contains selected works across the poet’s career, was published posthumously. At the time of his death in 2001, Ali was noted as a poet uniquely able to blend multiple ethnic influences and ideas in both traditional forms and elegant free-verse. His poetry reflects his Hindu, Muslim, and Western heritages.