Rukhsana Ahmad

Rukhsana Ahmad (born December 1948) is a British Pakistani writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays, and a translator, who after marriage migrated to England for further studies and pursue a career in writing. She has campaigned for Asian writers, particularly women.

Biography Rukhsana Ahmad was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1948. She did her schooling in many schools in different cities in Pakistan. She did her college education in Punjab University and in Karachi obtained Master of Arts degree from the Karachi University in English Literature and Linguistics. She then joined the University of Karachi and taught English Literature, until she married. Subsequent to her marriage she migrated to England, where she obtained degrees from the Reading University and the University of the Arts.

Ahmad became a member of the Asian Women Writers Collective in London in 1984. Along with Rita Wolf, in 1990 she co-established the Kali Theatre Company in London, which she headed for eight years. She has founded the South Asian Arts and Literature in the Diaspora Archive in the United Kingdom known as Salidaa (now Sadaa). She is also an advisory fellow of the Royal Literary Fund at Queen Mary's College, University of London.

Awards Ahmad has won many accolades in the form of nominations for well-known awards such as the Commission for Racial Equality Award, the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award, the Sony Award, and the 2002 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Her play River on Fire (2001) won her the second place for the Susan Smith Blackburn theatre award. For her play Wide Sargasso Sea she received the Writers' Guild of Great Britain radio adaptation award.