Fahmida Riaz dies at 73

LAHORE: Famed Urdu poet Fahmida Riaz passed away on Wednesday at the age of 73 in Lahore, ARY News reported.

She was born on July 28, 1945, in Meerut, . Her first poetry collection ‘Pathar ki Zuban’ (Language of Stone) was published in 1967.

Fahmida Riaz had fought a long struggle for the rights of women and democracy. She is author of Godaavari, Khatt-e Marmuz, and Khana e Aab O Gil, the first translation of the Masnavi of Jalaluddin Rumi from Persian into Urdu.

She was a human rights activist and feminist. She has said that “feminism has so many interpretations. What it means for me is simply that women, like men, are complete human beings with limitless possibilities. They have to achieve social equality, much like the Dalits or the Black Americans. In the case of women, it is so much more complex. I mean, there is the right to walk on the road without being harassed. Or to be able to swim, or write a love poem, like a man without being considered immoral. The discrimination is very obvious and very subtle, very cruel and always inhuman.”