Syed Asghar Wajahat, popularly known as Asghar Wajahat is a Hindi scholar, fiction writer, novelist, playwright, independent documentary filmmaker, and television scriptwriter. He has published five collections of short stories, six collections of plays and street plays, and four novels.
He completed his M.A. (Hindi) in 1968, and his Ph.D. in 1974, from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), later he did his Post Doctoral Research at Jawaharlal Nehru University (1981–83). And by 1960, while still studying at the Aligarh Muslim University, he had already started writing.
He joined Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi in 1971 as a Lecturer of Hindi, and later became a Professor and also the Head of the Department of Hindi at the university.
He has published 20 books including five novels, six full-length plays, five collections of short stories, a travelogue, a collection of street plays, and a book on literary criticism.
He has also written film scripts and conducted workshops on screenwriting. He has been placed among the top ten Hindi writers according to a survey conducted by Outlook (Hindi) magazine in 2007. His work has been translated into many Indian and foreign languages. A collection of his short stories in English entitled Lies: Half told has also been published. An Italian translation of his stories was published by Centro de Studio de documentation, Universitá Degli Studio de Venezia, in 1987. He regularly writes for various newspapers and magazines. He was guest Editor of BBCHindi.com for three months in 2007. He has also been associated with reputed Hindi literary magazines like Hans and Vartaman Sahitya as guest editor for their special issues on ‘Indian Muslims: Present and Future’ and ‘Pravasi Sahitya. He is now working on a film script as a scriptwriter for filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi. He has made a few documentary films including a 20-minute on the development of Urdu Ghazal. He has been honored by several literary organizations for his contribution to Hindi literature. Katha (UK), a London-based organization gave him the ‘Best novel of the year award’ in 2005 for his novel Kaisi Aagi Lalaee. Presently, he is a Professor of Hindi, Jamia Millia Islamia. He was also the officiating Director of, the A.J. Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.