Salma Siddiqui (18 June 1931 – 13 February 2017) was an Indian novelist in the Urdu language and a prominent member of the Progressive Writers' Movement.
Salma Siddiqui was born in 1931 in Varanasi. Her father Rashid Ahmad Siddiqui was an educationist and professor.[1] She studied Urdu at Aligarh Muslim University, earning a master's degree; she later taught at Women's College, Aligarh Muslim University.[2]
Her first marriage ended early,[2] and in 1957, she married Krishan Chander in Nainital. They settled in Bombay in 1962.[1]
Kausar Munir, a lyricist and poet known for the songs in the Hindi film Ishaqzaade is Siddiqui's granddaughter.[3] Siddiqui died on 13 February 2017, aged 85.[2][4]
In Siddiqui's father's household in Aligarh was a family retainer named Sikander. He was an idiosyncratic personality, and his stories formed the basis of Siddiqui's novel Sikandarnama.[1] A television serialisation of the novel, Karname Sikandar ke, was broadcast by Doordarshan in 1991.[1]
Other works Siddiqui is known for are Gilhari ki Behen, Bharosa and Mangal Sutra. Several of her completed manuscripts were destroyed in a monsoon shower, following which Siddiqui didn't publish again.[1]