Feminist Poets of Pakistan
FEHMIDA RIAZ
BIOGRAPHY
Fehmida Riaz, was born on July 28th, 1946 in Meerut, UP, India. She shifted to Hyderabad, Pakistan along with her family at a very young age. Her poetry writing skills manifested themselves at the tender age of four at the same time as she lost her father.
She was a literary entrepreneur as she started her own Urdu publication, "Awaz", which during Zia-ul-Haq's regime caused her to fled to India with her children as the liberal and politically charged content got in her deep trouble with the repressive government. She returned back to Pakistan, after seven years in exile.
She received many prestigious awards such as the Sitara-e-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan in 2010 and the Hemmet Hellman Award for Resistance Literature from Human Rights Watch.
ASEER SHEHZADI - "The Imprisoned Princess"
"Aseer Shehzadi" uses an edited version of Fehmida Riaz's poem "Aik Larki say".
Even though the stanzas have been rearranged to suit the video, nevertheless it captures the essence of her poetry beautifully as it goes through the phases of oppression, awakening and rebellion and empowers the Pakistani woman by giving her courage to fight against the cruel injustices committed against her.
POETRY
Fehmida Riaz through her use of free verse or the ‘nazm’ has questioned the backward degenerative interpretations of Islam, the suppressed position of women and the dictatorship that has ruled Pakistan time and time again.
Her blunt approach without sugar coating her opinions found her seeking exile in India for seven years but it did not falter her strong beliefs. In ‘Condolence Resolution’, Riaz says
Do not declare, in passionate orations,
‘This woman was indeed a true believer.’
Do not seek to prove me loyal, my friends,
To the state, the nation, the powers that be
Fehmida Riaz through her poetry imagines a new nation which transcends the hypocrisy and bigotism that encircles the position of the woman in society.