ISLAMABAD: A well-known educationist and literary person Dr Najiba Arif has assumed the charge of the chairperson of Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) becoming the first woman to head the organisation that has been working for the promotion of Urdu literature.

According to a statement issued by PAL here on Tuesday, Dr Najiba is a creative writer, poet, critic, researcher and professor and has authored and edited 13 books.

She has also published more than 50 research papers in national and international journals and volumes like Annual of Urdu Studies (US), The Journal of Indology and South Asian Studies (Germany) and the Encyclopedia of the World of Islam.

Her collection of poetry Ma’ni se Ziyda won the Oxford University Press Award for Urdu Literature in 2015. She has also published short stories, travel narratives and memoirs. Her field of interest in research is socio-political study of South Asian literature, Sufism and its literary manifestations and Occidentalism. She also studied the impact of 9/11 on Urdu fiction and poetry in 2010 and presented it in a conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Translation is one of her recent passions and she has translated multiple writings from English to Urdu, including a voluminous book on Mysticism, Philosophy and Science. She has previously served as Faculty Dean, Department of Linguistics and Literature at International Islamic University, Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2023