Zara Mumtaz

Zara Mumtaz is an educator, writer, and pioneer of children’s performing arts in Pakistan. A graduate with honours in English Language and Literature from Kinnaird College (1958), she served as President of the Students Executive, designed the College shield and banner, and wrote the lyrics of the College song. She later co‑founded OAKS and has been associated with education since 1965, promoting the performing arts nationwide as Director of Extra‑Curricular Activities at Beaconhouse. She is the author of four phonics‑based pre‑primary activity books published by Oxford University Press, as well as two collections of folk tales. Her first, Anna Bua Ki Kahanian (OUP, 2012), celebrates oral storytelling traditions. Her second, Agar Nagar Ki Nanhi Nazmein, Khel aur Geet, won the UBL Literary Award for Urdu Children’s Literature in 2020. A sought‑after children’s storyteller at literary festivals and schools, Zara’s poetry has been featured in Zohra Segal’s celebrated one‑woman performances. She has also won a national award for Best Script for the children’s television serial Peeli Kothi. Deeply rooted in the performing arts, she has studied piano with Trinity College of Music (UK), eastern classical music with Ustad Umrao Bundu Khan, and Kathak and Manipuri dance. In 1968, she co‑founded the Arts Council Children’s Theatre in Karachi, later reviving it in Lahore as The Awareness Children’s Theatre in 1992. As playwright and director, she produced more than two dozen stage and television scripts, directed large‑cast children’s productions, choreographed for the International Children’s Festival in Ankara (1995), and directed the Golden Jubilee play at the Alhamra Children’s Library Complex (1997).