Zaib-un-Nissa Hamidullah (Bengali: জেবুন্নেসা হামিদুল্লাহ, Urdu: زیب النساء حمیداللہ; 25 December 1918 – 10 September 2000) was a Pakistani writer and journalist.

[3] She also repeatedly represented Pakistan at the United Nations, including by serving as the deputy chief of the Pakistani delegation to the special 1970 session.

She grew up in a tightly knit Anglo-Indian household filled with Bengali thinkers and philosophers of the age, as her father's house at 48, Jhowtalla Road, was something of a meeting place for the Calcutta literary circle.

She started to write at an early age, and received considerable support from both her English mother and Bengali father.

At 18, she won a poetry competition sponsored by England's Daily Mirror for a poem she had published in The Star of India − a publication that later became part of the Dawn group of papers, for which she eventually wrote.

Raised in an Anglo-Indian household, she found it hard to adjust to the very different lifestyle of her husband's large Punjabi family.

After independence in 1947, Zaib-un-Nissa decided to work in the field of journalism, and soon established herself as an outspoken writer in her column "Thru a Woman's Eyes", in the Karachi daily newspaper Dawn.

After some time, she rebelled against the limited scope of the feature, declaring that women should have the right to comment on every subject, including politics.

Some of her other friends were: Hakim Said, Salima Ahmed, Ardeshir Cowasjee, Syed Hashim Raza and Jahanara Habibullah, the mother of Muneeza Shamsie.

She was also the first president of the Women's International Club of Karachi, a member of the Horticultural Society, and first woman-president of the Flower Show Committee.

Another organisation Hamidullah played an important role in was the All Pakistan Women's Association, founded by her friend Begum Raana Liaquat Ali Khan.

[3] In 1956, Zaib-un-Nissa wrote a travelogue entitled Sixty Days in America, about her trip to the US as part of a World Leaders Program, during which she befriended people like Marilyn Monroe and Jean Negulesco, and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The following year, she represented Pakistan at the United Nations sponsored seminar on Civic Responsibilities and Increased Participation of Asian Women in Public Life.

In 1957, her outspoken criticism of the harsh regime of Major-General Iskander Mirza, and the forced resignation of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, culminated in a six-month government ban on the Mirror, issued on 9 November.

Through this judgment Section 8 of the Security of Pakistan 1952 was declared violative of fundamental rights as it does not qulaify the restriction but leaves it to the discertion of the government.

Eminent critics, from newspapers and periodicals both Pakistani and foreign, called some of the stories in it "...the most significant literary productions of Pakistan".

", a very emotional open letter in which she pleaded with him to stop ordering the police to harm students taking part in demonstrations.

After Khan replied to the first editorial with a letter in which he dismissed Zaib-un-Nissa as "rashly emotional", the tension steadily increased.

In 1971, after civil unrest and the subsequent independence of Bangladesh, Zaib-un-Nissa sent a telegram congratulating the new government but chose to remain in Pakistan.

She returned near the end of the decade and began writing a column entitled "Thinking Aloud" for the Pakistani magazine MAG, part of the large Jang Group.

In the early 1980s, she served as president of the All Pakistan Women's Association (APWA), an organisation she had played a major role in since its inception.

Still writing columns for the Morning News of Karachi, she continued to comment on the socio-political aspects of Pakistani society.

Disenchanted with the new generation of Pakistanis, Zaib-un-Nissa fell into seclusion and soon moved in with her daughter, choosing to spend her remaining years with her family.

Another newspaper obituary said, "She will be long remembered for her pioneering role in a certain genre of journalism in Pakistan, and as a powerful and courageous writer.

Due to popular demand, a fourth edition of The Young Wife and Other Stories was published by Oxford University Press, Pakistan in August 2008.