SRINAGAR: Renowned Kashmiri poet, critic and scholar, Professor Abdul Rehman Rahi passed away on Monday. He was 98.
He was awarded the Jnanpith Award for the year 2004. He got Sahitya Akademi Award in 1961 for his poetry collection 'Nawroz-e-Saba' and Padma Shri in 2000.
He is the first Kashmiri writer to be awarded Jnanpith, the country's highest literary award for his poetic collection 'Siyah Rood Jaeren Manz' (In Black Drizzle).
As a translator, he did an excellent translation of Baba Farid's Sufi poetry to Kashmiri from original Punjabi. Camus and Sartre had some visible effects on his poems while Dina Nath Naadim's influence on his poetry is also visible especially in earlier works.