Afra Bukhari

Afra Bukhari was a Pakistani writer, best known for her short stories in the Urdu language. She was born in 1938, in Amritsar, British Raj, and moved to Lahore in Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. She studied at the Government College in Lahore, and began writing short stories in Urdu for her children in 1959. In 1978, after the death of her husband, she stopped writing and devoted her time to her family, but resumed writing and publishing in the 1990s. During the course of her career, she wrote five collections of short stories: in 1964 she published Faasle (tr: Distances), and in 1998 she published Nijaat (tr: Salvation). In 2003, she published Ret Mein Paoon (tr: Feet in the Sand) and in 2009, she published Aaank aur Andhera (tr: The Eye and the Darkness ). Her last collection of stories, Sang-e-Siyah (tr: Black Stone) was published in 2021, shortly before her death. She also published stories in a number of Pakistani literary magazines, and her only novel, Pehchaan (tr: Identity) was never completed. A partially-written memoir, Us Ki Zindagi (tr: Her Life) was also left incomplete at the time of her death. Bukhari was known for writing in a realistic and bold style, often depicting the harsh realities of life and society. She also wrote about the experiences of women, especially those who faced oppression and violence. She was a critic of the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq and a supporter of the progressive writers' movement. She was influenced by the writings of Premchand, Manto, Ismat Chughtai, and Quratulain Hyder. She was also an avid reader of English literature and translated some works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and George Eliot into Urdu. She was a well-respected writer who received several awards and honors, including the Pride of Performance in 1999, the Kamal-e-Fun Award in 2005, and the Sitara-e-Imtiaz in 2011. She was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. She died in Lahore on 2 January 2022, at the age of 83.