(Posted March 20, 2001)

Pakistani poet and human rights activist Fahmida Riaz will lecture on "Women of the Indian Subcontinent as Reflected in Muslim Literature" at 7:30 p.m. March 26 in 402 Good Hall on the Juniata College campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Riaz has 20 books of poetry and prose in print. She writes in Urdu, the national language of Pakistan and one of the languages used in India. She also wrote an English-language book, "Pakistan Literature and Society."

She was forced to leave Pakistan in 1981, when several court cases were filed against her to stop her human rights work. She was in exile in India from 1981 to 1987.

She received the 1997 Hemmet Helman Award from Human Rights watch, an international human rights organization based in New York City. She earned a bachelor's degree from Sindh University in Pakistan in 1967.

Riaz has been a senior research follow of the All-India Institute of Social Science and All-India Institute of Historical Research.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.