Akhtar Raza Saleemi

Islamabad-based poet and novelist Akhtar Raza Saleemi writes in Hindko and Potohari, in addition to Urdu. Born in district Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he moved to Karachi in childhood and later to Islamabad. He joined the Pakistan Academy of Letters in Islamabad as an editor. Saleemi has published a number of books, his poetry being regarded as a distinctive blend of dream and reality. In addition to receiving United Bank’s Best Fiction Writer award, he has twice won the Abasin Arts Council Award. Artist Wasi Haider made a thousand and one paintings for the cover of his Saleemi’s novel Wake Up in a Dream, so that the cover of each copy of the first edition of this novel was different.