Career
He writes in Urdu and English. Abbas has master"s degrees in Urdu and English literature from Mumbai University. His novels deal with themes of forbidden politics and love.
Abbas"s first Urdu novel, Nakhalistan Ki Talash (2004), written when he was 24, created a storm in conservative Urdu literary circles, and protests by religious conservatives forced him to resign from his post as lecturer in a junior college in the heart of Mumbai.
He finds his cultural identity blurred during the rise of right-wing and hate-filled politics in India at the turn of the 21st century. He tries to demonstrate his identity and historic self, ultimately leading to his tragic and mysterious education
Abbas was arrested on charges of obscenity following the publication of this novel. In his collection of literary essays, Ekkiswin Sadi Men Urdu Novel aur Digar Mazameen (Urdu Novel in Twenty First Century and Other Essay) he stated that as a young boy, he was influenced by the Modernist movement and wrote a few short stories which were published in the literary magazine Shabkhoon.
Later, reading Latin American, Western, and African novels, especially the works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, George Orwell, Victor Hugo, Milan Kundera, and Ben Okri, played a significant role in his formation as a novelist.
He has discussed how this transformation took place in detail in debates about two of his novels, Ek Mamnua Muhabbat Ki Kahani and Khuda Ke Saaye Mein Ankh Micholi, held on Canada"s Urdu television channel, Rawal television He returned the Award four years later along with two other awardees Nayantara Sahgal and Ashok Vajpeyi in protest of the governance of Narendra Modi.
