Amrita Pritam

Amrita Pritam Biography

Amrita Pritam is a noted writer of Punjabi who has won Jnanpith Award in 1982 for Kagaz Te Canvas (The Paper and the Canvas). She is considered the first prominent woman Punjabi poet, novelist, and essayist and always counted one among the top writers of 20^th century. She has published more than 100 books and loved by people on either sides of border and it consists of a huge collection of an autobiography, poetry, fiction, biographies, essays and a collection of Punjabi folk songs. Her popular poem is, Aj Aakhaan Waris Shah Nu which showed her anguish over massacres during the partition of India.

Her most noted novel is Pinjar written in 1950 which has been later made to a feature film in Hindi, with Urmila and Manoj Bajpai playing the leading roles.  When India was partitioned into two in 1947, she migrated from Lahore and settled in India. But her works are loved equally by Indians as well as Pakistanis.  She was compared to her contemporaries like Mohan Singh and Shiv Kumar Batalvi that time. She is the first woman of Punjab to win Sahitya Akademi Award and she got it for her poem, Suneha. She was honoured with Padma Shri in 1969 and Padma Vibhushan in 2004. She also received Sahitya Akademi Fellowship the same year.

Amrita Pritam was born as Amrita Kaur in 1919 in Gujranwala, Punjab as the daughter of Kartar Singh Hitkari, a school teacher, editor and poet. She lost her mother at a younger age and started writing at the age of 11. She and her father were living at Lahore that time, till India partition in 1947. Her first published work was a collection of poems - Amrit Lehran in 1936, at age sixteen. Same year, she married her childhood friend, Pritam Singh and changed her name from Amrita Kaur to Amrita Pritam. Majority of her works were written in this period with name Amrita Pritham.

But the relationship didn’t work and they parted. She was romantically involved with noted poet and Hindi lyricist Sahir Ludianvi. But that relationship didn’t reach marriage. She later married Imroz and the book, Amrita Imroz: A Love Story is based on their relationship. When she died at the age of 86, he was survived.

Published: N/A

Updated: September 10, 2013