21 Facts About Parveen Shakir

Parveen Shakir is best known for her poems, which brought a distinctive feminine voice to Urdu literature.

Parveen Shakir received two undergraduate degrees, one in English literature and the other in linguistics, and obtained MA degrees in the same subjects from the University of Karachi.

Parveen Shakir held a PhD, and another MA degree in Bank Administration.

Parveen Shakir wrote both prose and poetry, contributed columns in Urdu newspapers, and a few articles in English dailies.

In 1976, Parveen Shakir published her first volume of poetry Khushbu to great acclaim.

Parveen Shakir was awarded one of the highest honours of Pakistan, the Pride of Performance, for her outstanding contributions to literature.

Parveen Shakir subsequently published other volumes of poetry including Sad-barg in 1980, and Khud Kalami and Inkar in 1990.

Parveen Shakir published a collection of her newspaper columns, titled Gosha-e-Chashm.

On 26 December 1994, Parveen Shakir's car collided with a bus while she was on her way to work in Islamabad.

Parveen Shakir's ghazliat are considered "a combination of classical tradition with modern sensitivity", and mainly deal with the feminine perspective on love and romance, and associated themes such as beauty, intimacy, separation, break-ups, distances, distrust, infidelity and disloyalty.

Parveen Shakir claimed that the rich achieve their goals but at a grave price, and used these arguments to critique economic systems such as capitalism.

Parveen Shakir's poems are known for their in-depth exploration of sensitive topics rarely talked about, especially for women.

One aspect of writing that Parveen Shakir is particularly known for is her introduction of female pronouns, both first person and third person, as a way to normalize femininity in poetry, specifically within the realm of Urdu poetry, a traditionally masculine field.

Parveen Shakir's poetry was well-received, and after her untimely death she is considered one of the best and "most prominent" modern poets Urdu language has ever produced.

Parveen Shakir's poems were unique in the sense that they exposed and even encouraged freedom of expression among women.

Parveen Shakir did not shy away from taboo themes; instead, she claimed them and used them to create provocative poems that challenge the dependency of women on men.

In Parveen Shakir's writing, she touched on the theme of separation.

Parveen Shakir's book explored the theme not only in the sense of not only emotionally being alone, but in regards to unjustly losing social capital as a woman in the absence of a man.

Parveen Shakir's work has been acknowledged by several other poets and the media in general.

The first substantial selection of Parveen Shakir's work translated into English was made by the poet Paiker-e-Hussain in 2011.

In 2019, a collection of 100 selected poems of Parveen Shakir were translated into English by Naima Rashid and published by the Oxford University Press under the title "Defiance of the Rose".