Poet & writer
Dalip Kaur Tiwana
ਦਲੀਪ ਕੌਰ ਟਿਵਾਣਾدلیپ کور ٹواݨا
Punjabi novelist whose stories of village women's lives won every major prize, and who returned her Padma Shri in protest in 2015.
Dalip Kaur Tiwana was born in Ludhiana district and taught for decades at Punjabi University, Patiala. She wrote more than thirty novels, most about women in the villages of the Malwa: their marriages, their silences and their strength.
Her novel Eho Hamara Jivana won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1971. In 2015 she returned her Padma Shri in protest at rising intolerance in India.