Wajida Tabassum (16 March 1935-7 December 2011) lived in the princely state of Hyderabad Deccan located in south-central India and was a writer of fiction, verses and songs in Urdu. One of the foremost women writers in the language, she was known for her audacious and semi-erotic stories and her formidable power of storytelling. Her bold writing, through which she took on societal taboos, was seen as immoral and scandalous and faced many a public protest. Otherwise a woman who lived in purdah, Tabassum chose to write about strong and uncomfortable themes that made her 'unpopular' with the Indian society of the mid-1900s.
During the 1960s and 1970s, her stories were published in India in many magazines. Her books include Teh Khana, Kaise Samjhaoon, Phul Khilne Do, Zakhm-e-Dil Aur Mahak Aur Mahak, and Zan, Zar, Zameen, which was her last work, published in 1989. Her story titled 'Utran' (Cast-offs) was televised as a popular soap opera of the same name in India in 1988.
Reema Abbasi is a resident of Karachi, Pakistan. She is an independent contributor to several leading newspapers and a commentator on socio-political issues. She has been a journalist with the News International, Herald Magazine and Dawn, and is the author of Historic Temples in Pakistan: A Call to Conscience and Ajmer Sharif: Awakening of Sufism in South Asia. Reema has been a recipient of the Gender in Journalism Award in 2003 by UNESCO and the Rajiv Gandhi Award for the Literary Personality of the Year at the Fifth Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Awards in 2014. Throughout her career, Reema's writings have focused on marginalized communities, sociopolitical concerns, heritage and the values of secularism. Her other passions include travel, arts and culture.
