Nazuk Rao Iftikhar
Nazuk Iftikhar Rao is a Lahore based Development Economist working on her novel. She has worked with the UN in Pakistan, Indonesia, and NY in areas of humanitarian communication and Sustainable Development Goals. She has previously worked as the Monitoring and Evaluation Lead for Safe Delivery, Safe Mother, an initiative training community midwives about postpartum hemorrhage in remote areas to decrease on maternal mortality. In addition to this she was the Features editor for Columbia University's The Morningside Post and the Journal of International Affairs in 2015-17. Her writing explores the intersection between cities, moods, photography, and poetry. Her photo essays have been published by The Aleph Review Vol. 3, and The Missing Slate. She was a Fiction fellow at the South Asia Speaks Literary Mentorship 2021.
Friday 5th March
Rani ki Arsi
Arsi is a ring with a mirror in its center. The panel's title alludes to the fact that this is a mirror held by a woman, where she only sees fragments of herself. While we have a lot of female writers who write women-centric stories, these stories are more from the male gaze rather than the female gaze. The panel presents Pakistani women writers who reclaim that space and promote a feminine and feminist perspective. Meet writers who have eschewed the typical story (manic pixie dream girl characters) and look at women the way women see themselves.