Fakhar Zaman gets Hilal-e-Imtiaz for Punjabi writings

New Delhi, Sep 2 (UNI) Celebrated Punjabi writer Fakhar Zaman has been awarded the 'Hilal-e-Imtiaz', the highest Pakistani literary award, for his unparalleled contribution to Punjabi literature and culture.

Earlier, Zaman, who is the Chairman of the World Punjabi Congress (WPC), was also awarded the Millennium Award by Indian and Pakistani literary and cultural organisations for the Best Punjabi Novelist of the 20th century, WPC representative in India Dr S S Noor said in a statement here today.

Fakhar Zaman has recently received the highest award ever for a Pakistani, for Punjabi language and literature, the 'Shiramani Sahitya Award', by the Indian government for being the best Punjabi novelist of the 20th century.

His writings in Punjabi are part of the post-graduate curriculum in all universities offering Punjabi studies in India and a compulsory paper taught in the MA in the Delhi University.

More than a dozen PhD and MPhil Theses have been written on his novels, poetry and drama.

The members of the WPC and other literary and cultural organisations of Punjab and other provinces have congratulated Zaman for being the recipient of the highest literary award, the 'Hilal-e-Imtiaz'.

They said Zaman has received international acclaim for his trendsetting writings, adding he is a committed and progressive writer, who has a record of consistently opposing dictatorship, extremism and fundamentalism, and dauntlessly confronting personal sufferings and victimisation by the despotic regimes.

His five books, novels and poetry were banned in 1978, forcibly lifted from shops and burnt publicly. He fought a legal battle for 18 years and the ban was lifted by the Lahore High Court in 1996.

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