Biography of Jaun Elia

                                                Jaun Elia 

Jaun Elia was born on December 14, 1931 in a distinguished family of Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. He was the youngest of his siblings. His father, Allama Shafiq Hasan Elia, was deeply involved in art and literature and also an astrologer and a poet. This literary environment modeled him along the same lines, and he wrote his first Urdu couplet when he was just 8 years.

His first poetry collection Shayad  ("Maybe") was published when he was 60. The poetry presented in this collection added Jaun Elia's name in the Urdu literary canon forever. Jaun Elia's preface in this collection provided deep insights into his works and the culture within which he was expressing his ideas. The preface can also be considered as one of the finest examples of modern Urdu prose. It covered his intellectual evolution in different periods of time, and his philosophy of poetry, science, religion, etc. The second collection of his poetry Ya'ani was published postdiluvian in 2003 and the third titled Gumaan (in Urdu "Illusion") in 2004.

 An esteemed Urdu literary critic, Dr. Muhammad Ali Siddiqui has called Jaun Elia one of the three most renowned ghazal poets of Urdu of the second half of the twentieth century.

Jaun was also involved in translation, editing and other activities. 

He died after a prolonged  illness on November 8, 2002 in Karachi.

                                                 

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