A current issue of the quarterly Urdu literary magazine "Paish Raft International", being published under the chief editorship of Shafique Ahmed Shafique, has come out. It contains critical essays, analytical study of books, articles on penmen, short stories, poetry, as well as short reviews on literary magazines and books.
The magazine's chief editor for the first time in the history of Urdu magazine has announced literary awards 'Paish Raft International Ina'am' (Sanade-Eiteraf) for literary works, by prestigious writers, published in 2004.
In the current issue, brief introduction of 19 writers of the winning books, including poets, short story writers, critics and researchers' with their photographs has also been included.
The writers, who received awards of "Paish Raft International" include Jamal Pani Pati, Professor Afaq Siddiqi, Dr Mohammed Ali Siddiqi, Adeeb Sohail, Dr Jamil Azimabadi, Mohammad Yousuf Ismail, Syed Naimatullah, Dr Shakeel Nawazish Raza, Zaheer Bidari, Professor Najmul Huda, Professor Iftekhar Ajmal Shaheen, Qaiser Saleem, Agha Gul, Ishrat Roomani, Jamal Naqvi Aleeg, Ahmed Zainuddin, Akhter Saeedi and Shahnaz Noor.
It has also been decided to confer a special award "Eiteraf-e-Kamal" to a senior writer Faiz Aazmi for his whole literary and scholarly services, including his five long subjective books of poetry and two poetic anthologies.
The magazine had constituted a committee, comprising distinguished writers, to select the books, written on different subjects in Urdu during the year 2004. The main objective of this reward is that the writers should be given due appreciation for their valuable contribution in the literature.
The Pesh Raft International has announced that they did not have more books during the period of selection, hence now they are trying to approach more writers and publishing houses of the country in this connection.
The Paish Raft International has appealed to all writers and publishing agencies to send three copies of each book to the magazine for taking part in the contest.
According to the selection committee, books on criticism, fiction, novel, short story, drama and all kinds of poetry could be welcomed.