Harris Khalique (Urdu: حارث خلیق; born 20 October 1966) is a Pakistani poet in Urdu, English and Punjabi[1] and a civil society activist.[citation needed] Khalique has authored ten collections of poetry and two books of non-fiction.
In March 2018, the Government of Pakistan awarded him the Presidential Pride of Performance to acknowledge his contribution to poetry.[2]
In 2013, he was awarded the UBL Literary Excellence Award in the category of Urdu poetry for his collection Melay Mein.[3] He is also a University of Iowa Honorary Fellow in Writing.[4] During the 1980s and 1990s, some of his poems faced censorship in Pakistan.[citation needed] Anthologised and published internationally, he is translated into several languages and his poetry is composed to music and dance.[5][6][7]
He gave the keynote speeches at the 12th International Urdu Conference in December 2019,[19] at the 11th Karachi Literature Festival in March 2020,[20][21] at the 8th Faisalabad Literary Festival in November 2021 [22] and at the 7th Ayaz Melo in December 2021.[23]
Critical appreciation
Leading academic scholar, language historian and author Dr. Tariq Rahman writes, “…Harris Khalique is a major Pakistani poet in English. He uses condensed imagery and laconic, simple and highly evocative words to convey his meaning.” [24] Literary critic, linguist and scholar Fateh Mohammad Malik says, “Harris Khalique stands out amongst his generation of poets. He is the true progressive voice of our times who inspires us to stand for the poor and weak, not by sloganeering in verse but by using aesthetically powerful and contemporary poetic idiom".[25] Poet and essayist Omar Perez[26] (Son of Ernesto Che Guevara) writes, “Harris Khalique explores with self contained mastery, the contrasts between official and untold history."[27] Distinguished scholar-in-residence, St Michael’s College, Vermont, Kristin Dykstra [28] writes, “ His [Khalique's] meditations refract violence, each abstracting human need from a detailed portrait of sorrow.” [29] Speaking of his Urdu poems, poet Zehra Nigah said, “Khalique’s poetry has image-making, wonderment, history and characterisation. It is difficult to include all these elements in a nazm (poem).” [30] Author, critic and professor of Urdu literature, Dr Nasir Abbas Nayyar writes, “Khalique’s poems afford a central place to those things, people and occurrences whose existence is either erased, or pushed to the margins, or put in constant danger by the forces of the bazaar.” [31]
