Shama Askari

Shama Askari has been associated with the performing arts for the last twenty-five years. She began her acting career in theatre in 1999 with Tehrik-e-Niswan and then moved on to television, film, and dramatized readings, performing across Pakistan as well as in India. In 2021, Shama was selected to be part of the Transforming Narratives – Cultural Leadership Programme, supported by the British Council, which provided a platform for collaboration between creatives from the UK, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. She worked with the Adab Festival Pakistan and completed the project Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi, led by the Bradford Literature Festival in 2021. She served as Project Director for Adab Festival Pakistan in 2022. Shama worked with Dr. Asif Farrukhi on compiling and collecting Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. A collection of Ibn-e-Sa’id’s writings titled Hiroshima and Other Stories was translated into English and published by Lightstone Publishers in 2022. She was the runner-up for the translation award at the Jawad Memorial Prize. 

Her translation titled Queen Zarqa was published by Lightstone Publishers in 2024. She looks forward to further exploring the realm of translation as a means of connecting with and communicating to a wider audience.