Kishwar Naheed

Kishwar Naheed (Urdu: کشور ناہید‎) (born 1940) is a feminist Urdu poet from Pakistan. She has written several poetry books. She has also received awards including Sitara-e-Imtiaz for her literary contribution towards Urdu literature.

Naheed was born in 1940 to a Syed family in Bulandshahr, India. She migrated to Lahore, Pakistan after partition in 1949 with her family. She struggled and fought to receive education when women were not allowed to go to school. She studied at home and received a high school diploma through correspondence courses. In Pakistan she went on to obtain Master of Arts degree in Economics from Punjab University, Lahore.

Kishwar married a poet Yousuf Kamran and the couple have two sons. After her husband's death, she worked to raise her children and support the family.

Naheed has served major positions in various national institutions, as director general of Pakistan National Council of the Arts. She also worked and edited a literary magazine Mahe naw. She established Hawwa organisation (Eve). The purpose of the organisation is to support those women who have not independent income, providing financially opportunities through cottage industries and selling handicrafts.

Literary works

Kishwar has written six collections of poems between 1969 and 1990. Her first poetry collection Lab-i goya was published in 1968, that won the Adamjee Prize of Literature. She also writes for children and for the daily Jang. Her several poems have been translated into English and Spanish.

About her poem, Poetry Translation Centre writes:

"Her famous poem We Sinful Women gave its title to a ground breaking anthology of contemporary Urdu feminist poetry translated and edited by Rukhsana Ahmad published in London by The Women's Press in 1991".