Born in Bombay, 1943, Dr.Rafia Shabnam Abidi started her literary journey with short stories writing, under the name  Rafia Shabnam Manchari,( Manchar is a small district  in  Maharashtra, her father Shakir Manchari was a, teacher, mathematician and  Marathi Scholar). Beside fiction and poetry she has contributed  in the domain of Literary criticism and Translation too. She  was professor  of Urdu and Persian ,(Krishan Chander chair)  in the Urdu Persain Department at Bombay  University. She is a  multifaceted  scholar and writer, have a long list of her publications: Four poetry collecions, two novels and one collection of  short stories, two collections of critical essays and two books of  poetry translations from Marathi and Persain. "Tiryaaq", a Bombay quarterly,devoated  its June, 2017, issue to her, " Rafia Shabnam Abdi number".