Hussain offered Premchand Fellowship

Lahore: Pakistan's noted fiction writer Intezar Hussain has been offered the first Premchand Fellowship by India's national academy of letters.

A statement by the Sahitya Akademi, the official name of the academy, said Hussain would be invited to stay in India for a tenure of one to three months depending on his convenience and he would give readings in different cities.

Arrangements for his travel and stay will be made by the Akademi.

The Sahitya Akademi instituted the fellowship in Premchand's name on his 125th birth anniversary. This fellowship will be offered annually to a person of eminence in the field of culture and literature from South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) countries.

Interesting story-telling

Premchand was one of the greatest literary figures of modern Hindi and Urdu literature. The main characteristic of Premchand's writings is his interesting story-telling and use of simple language. His novels describe the problems of the rural peasant classes. He avoided the use of highly Sanskritised Hindi (as was the common practice among Hindi writers), but rather he used the dialect of the common people.

Lahore-based Hussain is a noted writer and columnist. He was born on December 21, 1923, in Dibai, Bulandshahar district, and migrated to Pakistan in 1947. His writings include four novels and 10 collections of short stories from which the prominent ones are Basti, Chand Gahen, Aagay Samundar Hai, Akhari Aadami, Gali Koochey and Shehr-e-Afsos.

His novel Basti and two of his short story collections have been translated into English.