QUDRATULLAH SHAHAB was born in Gilgit in 1917 and spent his childhood in Jammu. He worked for some time in the civil service of India and later, after Partition, joined the civil service of Pakistan where he held numerous offices including that of Ambassador to the Netherlands. He is, however, best known to Urdu readers as a master short-story writer and the main architect of the Pakistan Writers’ Guild, a government-sponsored agency for the organization and aid of Pakistani writers. His published works include two collections of short stories and Ya Khuda!—a novella about the problem of rehabilitating the refugees made homeless in the wake of India’s Partition. He died in 1986 shortly after completing his voluminous autobiography Shahabnama.