ISLAMABAD: Renowned novelist Qurratulain Hyder is being remembered on her 17th death anniversary on Wednesday.Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider was born on January 20 in Aligarh‚ Uttar Pradesh. She was an Urdu novelist and short story writer and a journalist. She began to write at the young age of 11. Her literary works include some 12 novels and novellas and four collections of short stories. Her first short story, Bi-Chuhiya, was published in the children’s magazine Phool, and at the age of nineteen, she wrote her first novel, Mayray Bhee Sanam Khanay. She won the Padmashree and Ghalib awards in 1984. The Urdu Academy in Delhi conferred upon her the Bahadur Shah Zafar Award in 2000. She received the Janpith Award in 1989 for her novel Aakhir-e-ShabkeHamsafar. She died on this day in India’s Uttar Pradesh. —DNA
