Akhtar Raza Saleemi

Akhtar Raza Saleemi (Urdu: اختر رضا سلیمی) as pen name born Muhammad Pervaiz Akhtar (Urdu: محمد پرویز اختر) on June 16, 1974, is a Pakistani poet and writer. He has written several poetry books and has been appreciated for his work by critics.

Early life and career

Saleemi was born on 16 June 1974, at Kekot, a village of district Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. He received his early education from his native village. Later he moved to Karachi. He complated his matriculation certificate there and moved again to Islamabad and settled there. He graduated from Allama Iqbal Open University. He joined the Pakistan Academy of Letters in Islamabad as an editor.
A Master’s level thesis has been done on his poetry and career from National University of Modern Languages (NUML) by a student Nazia Perveen in 2009.

Views

Saleemi has been praised and admired by various writers and critics, and about his poetry a critic writes;

"Saleemi has chosen a difficult genre of ghazal. It goes without saying that it is very hard to compose effective couplets. He prefers thought to the word".

Awards

• Quaid e Aazam literary gold medal for 2009