Imtiaz Dharker

'Imtiaz Dharker' is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker. She was born in Lahore in 1954 to Pakistani parents, but she was brought up in Glasgow where her family moved when she was less than a year old. She lived and worked in India for many years. She is now married to Simon Powell, the founder of the organization Poetry Live and divides her time between London, Wales and Mumbai. Her daughter Ayesha Dharker is a well known actress in international films, tv and stage. cite web |url=http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=2720&x=1| title=Imtiaz Dharker| accessdate=2006-11-20| format=HTML| work=Poetry International Web] She has written four books of poetry, conceived as sequences of poems and drawings. The main themes of her poetry are home, freedom, journeys, geographical and cultural displacement, communal conflict and gender politics.

She is a documentary film-maker and has scripted and directed over a hundred films and audio-visuals, mainly to do with education,reproductive health and shelter for women and children. In 1980, she was awarded a Silver Lotus for a short film.Fact|date=February 2007

An accomplished artist, she has had nine solo exhibitions of pen-and-ink drawings. All her books – all published by Bloodaxe – Postcards from god (including Purdah), I Speak for the devil and The terrorist at my table, include her own drawings

She is a prescribed poet on the AQA GCSE English syllabus. Her poems 'Blessing' and 'This Room' are in AQA Anthology, Different Cultures, Cluster 1 and 2 respectively.cite book |last=AQA |publisher=Oxford University Press |title=AQA Anthology 2005 onwards |year=2002]

She is on the judging panel for the 2008 Manchester Poetry Prize, with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke

Works

*"Purdah". (Oxford University Press, 1989)
*"Postcards from god". (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1997) ISBN 1-85224-407-0
*"I Speak for the Devil". (Bloodaxe 2001; Penguin Books India, 2003)
*"The terrorist at my table"(Bloodaxe 2006; Penguin Books India 2007)
*"Blessing". (poem)

References

Persondata
NAME=Dharker, Imtiaz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=Contemporary British-Indian poet
DATE OF BIRTH=1954
PLACE OF BIRTH=Lahore, Pakistan
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=