Ale Ahmad Suroor was born in a highly educated family of Badayun on 09 September, 1911. He passed his Matriculation examination in 1928. He got admitted to M. A. (English) in 1932 and M. A. (Urdu) in 1936 at Aligarh Muslim University following which he joined the university’s Urdu department as a faculty member. He also served Lucknow University from 1946 to 1955. In 1955, he returned to Aligarh and served as the Head of the Department of Urdu.   
During his stay at Lucknow, Suroor got associated with the Progressive Writers Movement but he did not ever become its compulsive follower although he opposed oppression and capitalism in a more balanced manner than the younger followers of the movement. 
He studied the literatures of the East and the West quite keenly which helped him sort out his own critical practice in Urdu. Apart from being a critic of substance, Suroor also emerged as a poet. Some of his works include: Naye aur Puraane Nazariye, Tanqeed Kya Hai,Adab aur Nazaria, Musarrat se Baseerat Tak, Iqbal ka Nazaraia aur Shairi (criticism), Zauq-e-Junoon (poetry), and Khwaab Baaqi Hain (Autobiography)