Iftikhar Arif


Iftikhar Hussain Arif is a Pakistani poet and litterateur of Urdu. His main theme is romantic Urdu poetry and previously served as chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters and the National Language Authority.
Arif is widely considered one of the current leading Urdu poets, and has received the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Sitara-e-Imtiaz, and Presidential Pride of Performance awards, the highest literary awards given by the Government of Pakistan.

Early life and career

Iftikhar Hussain Arif was born on 21 March 1944. He enrolled at the University of Lucknow, where he studied English, Urdu and Sanskrit and got his MA degree in 1965, then studied journalism at New York University. In the same year, Arif then migrated to Karachi, Pakistan, where he worked as a newscaster for Radio Pakistan. He later joined the Pakistan Television Corporation where he teamed up with Obaidullah Baig for the PTV program Kasauti.
He spent the next thirteen years in England, until 1990, working for a BCCI bank in London and the Urdu Markaz there.

Achievements

Arif has published three poetry collections: Mehr-i-Doneem, Harf-i-Baryab and Jahan-e-Maloom.
Oxford University Press has published an anthology of his translated poetry, Written in the Season of Fear, with an introduction by Harris Khalique, a poet who writes in English, Urdu and Punjabi.

Awards