| Name(s) |
AMRITA PRITAM |
| Date of
Birth |
August 31, 1919 |
| Date of
Death |
October 31, 2005 |
|
Identity |
Indian writer and poet |
|
Date-wise Events / Works |
With a career spanning over six decades, she produced over 100
books, of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of
Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were translated
into several Indian and foreign languages. |
|
Other Events &
Developments |
- She wrote in Punjabi and Hindi.
- She is considered the first
prominent woman Punjabi poet,
novelist, and essayist, and the
leading 20th-century poet of the
Punjabi language, who is equally
loved on both the sides of the
India-Pakistan border.
- Her first anthology of poems,
Amrit Lehran
(Immortal Waves) was published in
1936, at age sixteen, the year she
married Pritam Singh.
- She is most remembered for her
poem, Aj Aakhaan Waris Shah
Nu, an elegy to the
18th-century Punjabi poet, an
expression of her anguish over
massacres during the partition of
India.
- As a novelist her most noted
work was Pinjar
(The Skeleton) (1950), which was
made into an award-winning film in
2003.
- The first of Amrita Pritam's
books to be filmed was Dharti Sagar
te Sippiyan, as ‘Kadambar’ (1965),
followed by ‘Unah Di Kahani’, as
Daaku (Dacoit, 1976), directed by
Basu Bhattacharya.
- She was nominated as a member of
Rajya Sabha 1986–92.
|
|
Awards and Accolades |
- She became the first woman to
win the Sahitya Akademi
Award for her magnum opus,
a long poem, Sunehade (Messages).
- In 1982, she received the
Bhartiya Jnanpith,
one of India's highest literary
awards, for Kagaz Te Canvas (The
Paper and the Canvas).
- She was also awarded
Padma Shri in 1969 and
finally, Padma Vibhushan,
India's second highest civilian
award, in 2004.
|
|
Commemorations |
Rrenowned theatre person and the
director of the immortal partition movie
'Garam Hava', MS Sathyu paid a
theatrical tribute to her through the
rare theatrical performance 'Ek Thee
Amrita'. |
|
