Twelve Gates Arts is honored to continue our tradition of hosting Dr. Frances Pritchett for discussions on Urdu poetry. Frances W. Pritchett has taught South Asian literature at Columbia University since 1982. Her books include Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics, The Romance Tradition in Urdu: Adventures from the Dastan of Amir Hamzah, and (with Khaliq Ahmad Khaliq) Urdu Meter: A Practical Handbook. She is currently working on "A GARDEN OF KASHMIR", collection of Urdu Ghazals of Mir Muhammad Taqi Mir. 

Dr. Pritchett will discuss the famous ghazal of Mir "ulTii ho ga'iiN sab tadbiireN", with Mustafa Menai, Lecturer of Urdu at the University of Pennsylvania South Asia Studies Department. According to her: "And because it's so witty it would also give us a chance to demonstrate that Mir wasn't just a mopey melancholy sufferer heaving big sighs, as Azad paints him." 

Sameena Mughal will read from her new book, The Siddiqui Brothers in Cairo. It picks up from where the Siddiquis, Omar, Jafar, and Nasir left off in Baghdad in Shaherazade's Daughters. 
After the burning of the House of Wisdom, the Siddiquis shift to Cairo. We learn about the history of the brothers and how they came to be the progressive, feminist thinkers they are.