Saraiki literature

Saraiki literature is the literature of the Saraiki language of Pakistani Punjab.
Most of the writings from the 1960s to the 1980s were political in nature and are coloured by the ethnopolitical aims of the writers. Even though the number of publications has increased in the last and present decade, the Saraiki intellectuals themselves admit that there is not much readership, except perhaps for the works of some renowned contemporary poets, especially of the revolutionary poet Shakir Shujaabadi. Although writings in all the regional dialects are suffering from lack of readership for similar reasons, in the case of Saraiki there are two additional reasons. Firstly, most of the writers bring in colloquial phraseology (which varies from one variety to the other) in their writings and secondly, many writers, in their zeal to prove the antiquity of Saraiki and to promote its Indo-Aryan feature, tend to use more Sanskrit words instead of the more common Arabic-Persian words in order to distinguish it from Punjabi and Urdu, thus blocking the understanding of their general readers.
Folk literature and tales.
There many folk tales associated with Ghazi Khan and his minister Gaaman Sachar, a legendary character in Saraiki folk tales.
Poetry.
Some of the prominent Sindhi and Hindko poets have also done poetry in Saraiki. Sultan Bahu's (1628–1691) poetry is one of the examples of the junction of Saraiki dialect and Majhi (Standard Punjabi dialect).
Early poetry.
There are very rare written poems available from the early history in Saraiki. The research is going on about the early Saraiki poetry.
Prose.
Translation of Quran in Saraiki.
There are more than twenty translations of the Quran in Saraiki. Maqbool Hassan Gillani did his doctorate in Saraiki translations of the Quran.
Saraiki dictionaries.
Names of some dictionary writers in Saraiki are: