Aquila Ismail

Aquila Ismail

Aquila Ismail is a Karachi-based author and development worker. Her novel Of Martyrs and Marigolds, published in 2012, is a seminal work chronicling the history of the 1971 creation of Bangladesh from the ashes of East Pakistan. She has written extensively on literature, women’s issues, and Karachi’s development concerns for leading Pakistani newspapers and magazines. Since 2013, following the assassination of her sister, Perween Rahman, Aquila has led the Karachi-based development NGO, Orangi Pilot Project (OPP). Her published works also include translations of Urdu short stories by Asad Muhammad Khan (Harvest of Anger and Other Stories, It All Began with a Cat) and prose writings by Fehmida Riaz (Godavari, Reflections in a Cracked Mirror, and Zindabahar Lane). She has edited and authored several non-fiction books, including The Microcredit Programme of the Orangi Charitable Trust. Recently, she has published two volumes from the six-part series Legacy of Perween Rahman: In Quest of Water for the Poor and Karachi Floods: The Anthropocene Imprint. An electrical engineer by profession, Aquila Ismail is a retired Associate Professor from her alma mater, NED University of Engineering and Technology.