KHUJWA RECOLLECTED – Autobiographical essays by leading art critic and historian Dr. Akbar Naqvi
About the book: IN KHUJWA RECOLLECTED the author recollects the journeys of his ancestors over more than a millennium. Who they were and how they travelled through Bhukkur, Sindh from Bukhara and from there went to Uch and settled there. A branch arrived in Ahmedabad, India and from there went to Agra and various other places of North India. The author’s ancestor, Mir Ghulam Muhammed established Khujwa after clearing a forest in North Bihar in the eighteenth century, which was then in the kingdom of Awadh. The book is also a biography of ‘roshan khayal’ village of ‘ashraf’, one among hundreds and thousands in al-Hind. It also recounts the way of life and beliefs of its people. It contains the author’s recollection of his grandfather and father who maintained the values of their ancestors while negotiating changes right up to the British Raj. The book is an adventure into the identity of the author which is rooted in the basic values of his family, and the special study of the enlightenment in al-Hind which arose from Muslim presence in the Sub-continent.
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About the author: AKBAR NAQVI as a Ph.D. in English Literature from Liverpool University. He has written on Art and Architecture for Pakistani newspapers like The Sun, Dawn, and The Muslim for over twenty years. He is the author of a monograph on Shahid Sajjad, and wrote for the magazine Herald. Akbar Naqvi has taught the history of art at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture in Karachi, for several years as well as lectured at the National College of Arts, Lahore. He read a paper entitled ‘Modern Pakistani Painting’ at the seminar of The Royal Asiatic Society and the centre of South Asian Studies (SOAS), University of London, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of India and Pakistan. Akbar Naqvi conducted a seminar on Modern Pakistani Art upon invitation from the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. He is also the author of Image and Identity: 50 years of Painting and Sculpture in Pakistan 1947-1997, the first scholarly investigation of the history and development of modern and contemporary art in the sub-continent, as well as Pakistan: The Making of Art, a book for secondary school children. Akbar Naqvi’s books are also represented by Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, OUP (UK), Borders, Abe Books, Mary Martin books, Berkelouw, Paramount, amazon, and leading publishers across U.S, U.K, Australia etc.
