A BRIEF BIODATA

 

 

 

ZURINAH HASSAN is the first female writer to be awarded National Literature Award (Anugerah Sastera Negara) in 2015. It is the highest recognition by the government of Malaysia for creative writers, carrying the tittle of Sasterawan Negara or National Laureate.  She is also a recipient of the Southeast Asia Writing Award (SEA Write Award) in 2004.

 

Zurinah Hassan was born in Alor Setar, Kedah in 1949. She received her early education in Kedah before continuing her studies at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, from which from which she obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree majoring in comparative literature.  She worked as Information Officer and took optional early retirement to pursue her passion in creative writing, at the same time pursued higher degrees . She obtained Master of Arts from Universiti Putra Malaysia, and  Ph.D from Universiti Malaya in 2008.

 

Zurinah writes in various genres. To date, she has produced collections of

poetry, collections of short stories, a novel,  and memoirs. Zurinah has won writing prizes at national level, such as Hadiah Sastera Perdana  the Utusan Group Literary Prize, the National Library Book Prize,  the Islamic Short Story Prize.

Zurinah’s work has been translated into several languages, for example her collection of poetry  Menghadap ke Pelabuhan has been published with translations in English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese and French.

 

She has been appointed  by several universities, including as Research Fellow by University of Malaya and Adjunct Professor by  Universiti Malaysia Perlis.