KARACHI, June 2: Three senior Urdu fiction writers have been awarded a literary prize worth $10,000 each for the year 2003. The writers are Bano Qudsia, Shaukat Siddiqi and Intezar Husain.

This was announced by the permanent chairperson of the panel of judges for the ARY Gold annual prize, Jamiluddin Aali, in Karachi on Monday.

So far, the award was given to one prose writers in a year for services to literature. However, a press release says, in order to ensure that highly deserving and senior creative prose writers were recognized in their lifetime, it was decided to make an exception this year and select three writers for recognition. From next year, the award will again be awarded to only one writer.

The other judges for this year’s award were Iftikhar Adani (Karachi), Dr Farman Fatehpuri (Karachi), Hameed Kashmiri (A.J.K and Karachi), Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik (Islamabad) and Prof Dr Zahur Ahmed Awan (Peshawar).