Daud Kamal 4 January 1935 - 5 December 1987(Urdu: داؤد کمال)) was a Professor of English Literature at University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He was educated at Cambridge University, UK. Kamal started writing poetry in his twenties and became one of the major English language poets of Pakistan. He received three gold medals for his poetry from the Triton College and his poems were recorded for the Library of Congress, Washington DC. USA. ‘Remote Beginnings’ and ‘A Selection of Verse’ (ISBN 0-19-577812-X), are his anthologies. He also did translations of the classic Urdu poet Ghalib in English.

Born at Abbottabad into an academic family. His father Mohammad Ali, S. Pk, was the Vice Chancellor of the Peshawar University. He got his early education at Burn Hall in Kashmir; graduated with distinction from the University of Peshawar; obtained his tripos from the University of Cambridge. Starting off as a lecturer after his return from Cambridge, Daud Kamal was appointed Professor and Chairman of the Department of English, University of Peshawar in 1980 and continued to serve in this position till his death on December 5, 1987, leaving behind a wife, two daughters and a son.

Daud Kamal published his free verse translation 'Ghalib: Reverberations' in 1970 hailed by many as the best rendering of the master in English. His first collection Compass of love and other poems appeared in 1973. This was followed by Recognitions (1979), Faiz in English (1984) and A Remote Beginning 1985. Kamal's rendering of Faiz was published in another edition from India in 1988.

Kamal's work has been posthumously collected and published in the following titles: Rivermist (1992), Four contemporary poets (Translations from Urdu, 1992), Before the Carnations Wither (1995), A Selection of Verse (1997).[1]

[edit] A Poem by Daud Kamal

“We all die

even those

who’ve not yet lived.

Two streams, distrustful

of each other, meet.

Night opening her mouth

to take the bite.”

[edit] See also

• List of Pakistani writers
• Muhammad Farooq