Born in Meerut, India, Fahmida Riaz is among the front rank of Urdu poets.

From the outset she refused to be typecast as a woman poet and conform to what are generally regarded as the confines of 'proper' literary and creative traditions of feminine poetry. In her choice of themes, diction, allusion, and similes Riaz broke out of the inhibitions imposed on her gender. She used her femininity as a weapon to expose the prudishness of the male-oriented traditions of Urdu poetry.

Riaz has since published four more collections of her verse, and she is also the author of several short stories and novels in Urdu.

Fahmida Riaz is also an unrelenting social critic and has been active in several human rights movements. She was among the writers who campaigned against General Ziaul Haq's military rule and the execution of Z. A. Bhutto and had to suffer the wrath of the authorities and a period of self-exile.

Riaz has travelled widely and lectured at universities and cultural forums in England and the USA. She was given the Himmett-Hellman award by Human Rights Watch, New York, in 1997 and the Al-Muftah Award in Karachi in 2005.