Poet & writer
Surjit Patar
ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਪਾਤਰسرجیت پاتر
Among the most loved Punjabi poets of recent decades, known for ghazals that mix classical form with everyday speech.
Surjit Patar was born in 1945 at Pattar Kalan near Jalandhar and taught Punjabi literature at Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana.
His ghazals and poems, in collections such as Hawa Vich Likhe Harf and Lafzan di Dargah, combine classical forms with everyday speech. He wrote on the violence of the 1980s, on the farmer, on loss and on the Punjabi language itself, and he translated Lorca, Brecht and Neruda into Punjabi.
He won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1993 and the Padma Shri in 2012, which he returned in 2020 in support of the farmers' protest. He died in 2024.