Afzal Ahsan Randhawa

Early and personal life Muhammad Afzal Ahsan Randhawa was born in Amritsar, Punjab, British India on 1 September 1937. He belonged to a Randhawa Jat family. He was the editor of the law college magazine Al-Meezan.

Randhawa participated as a guest or a panelist at literature festivals and writing conferences in Pakistan.

Aitzaz Ahsan a lawyer, in his 1996 book (reprinted in 2005) The Indus Saga, quoted six verses of Randhawa's poem to depict the Indus man.

In 2015, the Pakistan Academy of Letters announced the 2013 Kamal-e-Fun Award, the highest literary award, would be presented to Randhawa along with a ₨. 1,000,000 prize money.

In 2016, Randhawa opened the Lyallpur Sulekh Mela (Lyallpur Literary Festival) held in the Faisalabad Arts Council in Faisalabad.

Political career Outside literature, Randhawa was a left leaning politician and a lawyer.

In 1972, in a by-election he won the NA-49 seat in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) for the National Assembly on Pakistan Peoples Party's ticket. He contributed to the framing of the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan.

Books In Punjabi, Randhawa wrote four novels, four collections of short stories, six collections of poetry, one collection of TV and radio dramas and three translated versions of an African novel, one collection of African poetry and one translation of interviews of world leaders. He also wrote a collection of Urdu poetry.

Novels His literary career began in 1961 with the publication of Deeva tey Darya, his first novel.

Among Sikhs in India Randhawa's works have been transliterated into Gurmukhi script and published in the Indian Punjab.

In 1999, he was bestowed upon with Kartar Singh Dhaliwal award by the Punjabi Sahit Akademi, Ludhiana. Kamal-e-Fun Award (Lifetime Achievement Award) by Pakistan Academy of Letters for his literary work in 2013.