Iftikhar Arif was Chairman of the National Language Authority, Pakistan, and the Pakistan Academy of Letters. He was Director General of the Pakistani Scholars and Writers’ Foundation, and a senior producer and script editor at the Pakistan Television Corporation. He has appeared in several literary programmes on Pakistan Television, BBC Television, and BBC Radio. His works include Mehr-e-Do-neem, The Twelfth Man, and Harf-e-Baryab. His poems are widely published throughout the Urdu literary world and have been translated into several languages. He has won several awards, including the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, Pride of Performance (Literature), and Faiz International Award for poetry. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Allama Iqbal Open University, President of the Third World Writers Association (UK), and member of the Afro-Asian Writers Union. In his last assignment, he was appointed as President of the ECO Cultural Institute, Tehran, Iran.