Description

The autobiography of Ralph Russell, Marxist and celebrated Urdu scholar, offers a fascinating insight into some of the major 20th century events which have shaped our world today.

Ralph Russell (1918-2008) is best known as one of the foremost western scholars of Urdu literature. For over fifty years his teaching, translations and writings have made this rich literature accessible to readers with no knowledge of the language, and earned him a high reputation among fellow Urdu scholars. For thirty years at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and afterwards in Asian communities in British cities, he pioneered the teaching of Urdu as a means of bringing closer understanding between people and bridging cultural divisions. His honesty, humour and unusual insight have won him a unique place in the affections of lovers of Urdu worldwide.

He belonged to that extraordinary and celebrated generation of British scholars who became Marxists at Oxford and Cambridge in the 1930s and became an influence on the intellectual life of the twentieth century. He shares the company of, amongst others: Eric Hobsbawm, EP Thompson, Rodney Hilton, Christopher Hill, Victor Kiernan and Joseph Needham.

RALPH RUSSELL SPEAKING ABOUT LOSSES GAINS

Part 2, entitled Losses, Gains, continues the story of my life from 1945 when I returned from the war in India, to 1958. It provides an introduction to a complex period of social and political change. Internationally, from a situation where Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union were war-time allies to the Cold War and McCarthyism. In Britain, a period of austerity and severe winters, a housing crisis, the nationalisation of coal, the creation of a National Health Service. In India, the early years of independence, land reform and peasant uprisings, tensions with Pakistan. It is likely to be published before the end of 2008.

Ralph Russell

Ralph Russell was the most well known authority on Urdu literature outside south Asia. His work on Urdu poetry in the late Mughal era, and his translation of Ghalib’s poetry and prose is studied all over the world.

From Wikipedia:

Professor Ralph Russell SI (Urdu: رالف رَسَل) (born 21 May 1918, died 14 September 2008) was a British scholar of Urdu literature and a Communist. He was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge, UK. He taught Urdu and Urdu literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and also in universities in India and Pakistan. He wrote articles and essays in Urdu and English, and attended literary seminars and workshops on the subject of his specialization.

Russell was born in Hammerton in North Yorkshire, England, and grew up in Loughton, Essex. For much of his life he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He was awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz in recognition of his services to Urdu language and literature by the Government of Pakistan.

Official Website: http://www.ralphrussell.co.uk/