The multilingual release of three of the renowned 13th-century poet Sheikh Saadi Shirazi’s moral stories and aphorisms, known as “Gulistan-e-Saadi,” has given the Persian literary masterwork a new lease on life.
In honor of its tenth anniversary, The Joy of Urdu, a worldwide, volunteer-run, bilingual organization founded in 2013, issued the book last year.
Through a variety of viewpoints, the organization seeks to promote the richness of Pakistan’s official national language, Urdu, which serves as the country’s lingua franca. A number of chapters in different cities across the globe foster community through talks, lively reading groups, and internships.
Honoring Zehra Nigah
On May 14, the organization honored Zehra Nigah, a renowned modern Urdu poet, on her 88th birthday. Qasim Jafri, a cultural enthusiast and member of the Joy of Urdu Board, performed excerpts from Nigah’s poetry at Annemarie-Schimmel-Haus in Lahore.
Zarminae Ansari, the founder of Joy of Urdu and a Pakistani writer and architect currently living in Portugal, notes that Persian, like Arabic, has always been used as an additional language in the classroom.
“It’s not as far removed from Urdu as political spin would have it be,” she says in a phone interview with Sapan News. Ansari responds that these tales from Saadi’s “Gulistan” and “Bostan” carry significance when asked why Joy of Urdu selected this literature for its initial release among a myriad of others.
