Qurratulain HaiderQurratulain Hyder was an Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding and influential literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for her magnum opus, "Aag Ka Darya" (River of Fire),a novel first published in Urdu in 1959, from Lahore, Pakistan.Popularly known as "Ainee Apa" among her friends and admirers, she was the daughter of writer and pioneers of Urdu short story writing Sajjad Haidar Yildarim (1880-1943). She received the 1967 Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu for "Patjhar Ki Awaz" (Short stories), 1989 Jnanpith Award for "Akhire Shab Ke Humsafar", and the highest award of the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1994. She also received the Padma Bhushan from the Government of India in 2005.Her first short story, Bi-Chuhiya (Little Miss Mouse), was published in children's magazine "Phool" and at the age of nineteen wrote her first novel " Mayray Bhee Sanam khanay ". Read More Read Less