JAUN ELIA POETRY

Born in Amroha in Uttar Pradesh, Elia shifted to Karachi 10 years after Partition.

His father, Allama Shafiq Hasan Elia, was deeply involved in art and literature and was also an astrologer and poet. This literary environment modeled him along the same lines, and he wrote his first Urdu couplet when he was just eight.

Before long, Elia became popular in the literary circles of Karachi. His poetry, which bears ample testimony to his wide-ranging reading habits, won him acclaim and approbation.

His first poetry collection Shayad was published in 1991, when he was 60.

The second collection of his poetry Ya’ani was published posthumously in 2003. Afterwards, Elia’s trustworthy companion Khalid Ansari compiled and published his three consecutive collections, Gumaan in 2004, Lekin in 2006 and Goya in 2008.

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