[1][2] Ghulam Abbas was born on the 17th of November 1909 in Amritsar, British Punjab into a Pashtun family of the Sadozai tribe tracting its roots to Afghanistan.
He got his Intermediate degree as late as 1944 from the Punjab University because he began to earn a living as a writer early on and couldn't complete his education.
[4] In his early career, Ghulam Abbas worked as a publisher with Maulvi Mumtaz Ali, and specialized in the translation of literature for children.
[2] Ghulam Abbas had a large private library with some 20,000 books on all subjects, while his other hobbies included playing music, having mastered musical instruments such as the guitar, the violin and the flute, as well playing chess, including having competitions with fellow writers such as Noon Meem Rashid.
The story "Overcoat" (one of his prestigious works) is very simple on the surface, but if you read it carefully, it reveals many layers of deep social meaning.
Ghulam Abbas's characters are not pre-planned, but he picks up a few ordinary people from some class and corner of their society and environment and then presents them with the whole truths of their lives and all the good and bad details of their surroundings.