Elsa Kazi

Who was Elsa Kazi?

Elsa Kazi, commonly known as "Mother Elsa", particularly in the Sindh province of Pakistan was a German writer of one-act plays, short stories, novels and history, and one of the greatest poetesses of her time. She was also a composer and a musician of considerable achievement, involved in virtually every conspicuous branch of fine arts. Her paintings are often seen in many distinguished family homes.

Although not well conversant with the Sindhi language, she yet managed to come with some of the best translations of selected verses of Shah Abdul Latif into English with the support of her husband, Allama I. I. Kazi. She successfully couched the substance of those verses in a remarkable poetical setting which, in musical terms, reflects the original Sindhi metrical structure and expression in which Latif had cast them. Her translation of Shah Abdul Latif's poetry still remains the best so far in the English language. Her works have been the subject of several doctoral theses. She is also famous for her stories for children. Furthermore, the University of Washington Libraries has rated one of her works "Temptation: a drama of Sind country life in three acts" published in 1942 and "Aeolian: notes of an overstrung lyre" published in 1920 amongst the best South Asian literature that emerged prior to the Partition of India in 1947.