Afzal Ahmed Syed has published three collections in Urdu of the modern nazm genre—titled Chheni Hoi Tareekh (An Arrogated Past, 1984), Do Zubanon Mein Saza-e Maut (Death Sentence in Two Languages, 1990), and Rococo Aur Doosri Duniyaen (Rococo and Other Worlds, 2000)—and one ghazal collection, Khaima-e Siyah (The Dark Pavilion, 1988). His latest work was the first Urdu translation of Mir Taqi Mir’s Persian divan.