RAWALPINDI: A three-day virtual event, the Pakistan's Women in Literature Festival 2021, is a first of its kind event bringing mostly female authors from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia together on a single platform.

The festival, which began on Tuesday, was conceived by Sabin Muzaffar, founder of development platform Ananke, an online non-profit publication engaging women across the MENA region and beyond. Muzaffar then collaborated with a number of Pakistani literary outlets, including the Zuka Books publishing house, as well as several writers and literature enthusiasts to make the event a reality. 

Muzaffar told Arab News she conceived the idea for the festival while wrapping up a Digital Girls Summit hosted by her organization in 2020, leading her to reach out to Mehr Husain of Zuka Books. 

“There's a commonality in everything that we [the residents of Middle East, North Africa and South Asia regions] do,” Muzaffar said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “How we live may be different, but our issues are the same. How we express them may vary, but there’s a rooted familiarity due to our backgrounds and cultures.” 

“We have moderators from all walks of life, all economic backgrounds and all geographical locations,” festival cofounder Husain said. “One of the most striking aspects of this festival is that each one of us has struggled to get our work out and speak out about it. Why isn't anybody giving us the chance to do so?” 

Husain and Muzaffar both said it was not difficult to convince women to attend and participate in the platform and assume the responsibility of curating their own panels and discussions. 

The festival, livestreamed on Ananke's official Facebook page, features topics like Women’s Literary History: 100 Years through a Gender Lens, Translating Women: The Impact of Gender and Translated Work, and The Female Literati: Documenting HERstories.

Ameena Saiyid, who heads Lightstone Publishers and previously worked as Managing Director at Oxford University Press, told Arab News she was surprised such an initiative had not materialised earlier, calling the festival a “revolutionary step.” 

“I am delighted that it is happening,” she said. “We have all seen ‘manel’ discussions at festivals and seminars. In one instance, there was a session on women empowerment and all the discussants were men! It can become absolutely ridiculous.” 

Saiyid, who is also a participant in the ongoing festival and organizes her own festival Adab, said people should expect more such events. 

“In order to make a point, we needed to have a festival for women and create a bunch more for the advocacy and the empowerment of women,” she said. “What it will do is that it will create awareness of the enormous contribution of women in literature and how important it is.”

Saiyid has partnered with the Bradford Literature Festival to train women from Pakistan and the United Kingdom to launch such events themselves.

“The idea of women organizing festivals is catching on now,” she added. “I feel that no festival can now succeed without women being an essential part of it.”