Jamaluddin Abro, ( – ) also known as Jamal Abro (2 May 1924 – 30 June 2004,

Larkana Larkana (; ) is a city located in the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is the 15th largest city of Pakistan by population. It is home to the Indus Valley civilization site Mohenjo-daro. The historic Indus River flows in east and south of the ci ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

) was a Sindhi writer. He was born in Sangi, a small village in Mehar Taluka, then part of

Dadu District Dadu District (), () is a Districts of Pakistan, district of Sindh, Sindh Province, Pakistan. With headquarters in the city of Dadu, Pakistan, Dadu, the district was created in 1931 by merging Kotri and Mahal Kohistan (later Jamshoro) tehsils fro ...

Life

Abro studied in a number of schools in Larkana and

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

. He passed his

matriculation Matriculation is the formal process of entering a university, or of becoming eligible to enter by fulfilling certain academic requirements such as a matriculation examination. Australia In Australia, the term ''matriculation'' is seldom used no ...

from

Bombay University University of Mumbai is a public state university in Mumbai. It is one of the largest university systems in the world with over 549,000 students on its campuses and affiliated colleges. , the university had 711 affiliated colleges. It was est ...

in 1941 and later became a student at the Bahauddin College in

Junagadh Junagadh () is the city and headquarters of Junagadh district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located at the foot of the Girnar hills, southwest of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar (the state capital), it is the seventh largest city in the state. It i ...

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

. In 1944, he went to

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

and worked as a volunteer at relief camps for famine-affected areas. He also worked as an activist with the Khaksar Movement. He took a degree in law in 1948 from Shahani Law College in Larkana and started working as a lawyer. Abro entered public service in 1952 and was posted as a sub-judge in a number of places in Sindh. In the latter part of his career, he served as a judge in the labor court and as a secretary to the

Provincial Assembly of Sindh The Provincial Assembly of Sindh is a unicameral legislature of elected representatives of the Pakistani province of Sindh, and is located in Karachi, its provincial capital. It was established under Article 106 of the Constitution of Pakis ...

. He remained active on the literary front with the Sindhi Adabi Sangat (the organization of Sindhi writers with members all over Sindh).

Work

Abro's first short story was published in the year 1949 and was followed by some others. ''Pishu Pasha'' aroused much debate and discussion, and this was the name given to the collection of nearly a dozen short stories published in 1959. This nearly brought Jamal Abro's work to a close as a short story writer and was followed by a long gap of silence. An invitation to contribute a story for a university magazine being edited by Shaikh Ayaz, (the leading Sindhi poet who was a close friend) led him to write his first story in fifteen years. This story focused on ''karokari'' (the ritual murder of a woman accused of immorality), written as only the author of " Pirani" could have. It was followed by a story, written during the Writers' Conference,

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

, in the days of General

Zia ul-Haq Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (12 August 192417 August 1988) was a Pakistani military officer and statesman who served as the sixth president of Pakistan from 1978 until his death in an airplane crash in 1988. He also served as the second chief of ...

Martial Law Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule and the suspension of civilian legal processes for military powers. Martial law can continue for a specified amount of time, or indefinitely, and standard civil liberties ...

; it describes the conference as a setting for an encounter with the angel of death.

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20150801155410/http://jamalabro.com/
Literary event in Abro's honour
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100608061558/http://www.chowk.com/articles/4147 {{DEFAULTSORT:Abro, Jamal 1924 births 2004 deaths Pakistani writers Pakistan Movement Sindhi writers