Fawzia talks of her role of unofficial cultural envoy
ISLAMABAD: Scholar, poet, playwright, performance artist and singer Fawzia Afzal-Khan has said that she considers herself a cultural ambassador, speaking of Pakistan to the people in the United States.
Fawzia, who is in Pakistan to do some acting in the theatre as well as singing in private performances at homes of her friends, was invited on Thursday by the Pakistan English Forum at the Writers’ House of the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) to speak on her latest book — Lahore with Love, just released by the Syracuse University Press (USA).
Speaking to the small gathering, she said ordinary people in the US were no different from others. “They, too, are humans and man, womankind everywhere is the same.”
Lahore with Love is Fawzia’s fifth book in which she talks about her home country with some detachment because she now lives in the US, where she is an English professor at the Montpelier University.
“I was raised in Lahore, and educated at Convent as well as Government College, Lahore, and then went to the States for doctoral studies. After living abroad for 30 years my life in this country has long since gone, and I begin to ask ‘What am I? What I have turned into? What change has come to my country?” she said.
“I wanted to look back and craft a work of literary imagination that people would read and talk about,” she said. The talk was presided over by the English language poet Ilona Yusuf.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/26/2010
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