Scholar, poet, teacher, and diplomat Ahmed Ali (1908-1998) holds an honored place as novelist and chronicler of India's shift from an English colony to a free state. In addition to being a prolific author of poems and world-class novels, translator of the Koran and the ghazals of Ghalib, and critic of poet T. S. Eliot, Ali lived a double life in business and politics. He worked as a public relations director and was a foreign spokesman for Pakistan. While serving in the diplomatic corps, he traveled the world.

The son of Ahmad Kaniz Begum and Syed Shuja-uddin, a civil servant, Ali was born in Delhi, India, on July 1, 1908. He grew up during the emergence of Indian nationalism and the Muslim League, the impetus behind the creation of a separate state of Pakistan. After his father's death, he passed into the care of conservative relatives who lived under a...