Achievements & Events
March 28, 2024 2024-05-14 10:56Achievements & Events
Although we plan to go a long way and take more steps towards improvement, a few highlights of the ICPWE past and current achievements are as follows:
Pioneer Pakistani poet, Taufiq Rafat’s items
Securing the pioneer Pakistani poet, Taufiq Rafat’s items, including books, valuable unpublished material, manuscripts, visual images, and objects from the
Trustees of the Taufiq Rafat Foundation. Now a part Taufiq Rafat Collection (TRC), his personal typewriter is also donated by the Foundation.
Zulfikar Ghose’s Literary Legacy: Rare Collections at the Kinnaird Centre
Professor Zulfikar Ghose of the University of Texas at Austin, USA, a distinguished poet, novelist, critic, and academic has contributed many signed, first
editions to our Kinnaird Centre. These rare collections, the first dating back 50 years, are not found anywhere else and are a part of his donated books (ZGC). An
update on ZGC at ICPWE is that ever since his sad demise in 2022, Professor Ghose’s family has been in correspondence with us to donate more of his books.
This will certainly help us expand our resources. For now, access to Ghose’s essays for the daily DAWN on regular basis is permitted by his family and the
trustees, so we tag the web link herewith: https://www.dawn.com/news/1628986
Just to inform, some of Ghose’s resources are also placed as “An Inventory of His Collection” at the Harry Ransom Center of University of Texas at Austin (https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadid=00384 ).
The Kaleem Omar Collection: Preserving the Legacy of an Eminent Pakistani Poet
A donation of personal papers, notebooks, articles, letters, photographs of Kaleem Omar, the eminent Pakistani poet, are placed under the Kaleem Omar
Collection (KOC), consisting also of his donated books.
The M. Athar Tahir-Chowdhry Collection: A Treasury of Diverse Resources and Artistic Works
The M. Athar Tahir-Chowdhry Collection (MAT-CC) of books and archival material has diverse resources donated by the founding Director. This includes his
poetic and artistic works.
The Sara Suleri Goodyear Collection: Honoring a Distinguished Kinnaird Alumna
We have recently added the Yale Professor Sara Suleri Goodyear Collection (SSGC). As her sister has shipped several of Sara Suleri’s personal library books,
they are being preserved at ICPWE. We have an understanding that more book donations are yet to arrive, and much more to be done to honor the distinguished
Kinnaird alumna and pride!
The Muneeza Shamsie Collection: Enriching the Literary Landscape at the Centre
Already a part of our National Advisory Committee, the famous Pakistani freelance critic Muneeza Shamsie has donated books from her personal library. As she
plans to send more books, Muneeza Shamsie Collection (MSC) at the Centre preserves them.
Besides this, several resources have been purchased and donations made by many other prominent Pakistani native or diaspora writers, authors, readers, critics, and lovers of Pakistani literary writings in English, like Bapsi Sidhwa, Shahid Hosain, Shoaib bin Hassan, Tariq Rahman, Waqas A. Khwaja, Adrian Husain, Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Bina Shah, Nazneen Sheikh, Ilona Yusuf, Qaisra Sharaz, Shadab Zeest Hashmi, Javed Amir, Usman Yousaf, Shahid Nadeem, Usman Ali, Zohra Zoberi, Jocelyn Ortt-Saeed, to mention a few. As the list goes on, per rough estimate the Centre’s collection now exceeds sixteen hundred books.
