LAHORE: Ajoka executive director and playwright Shahid Nadeem has, for the first time, written a full-length English play, titled,`Lawrence of Lahore: the Lost Years`.

The play is inspired by the little known presence of the fabled Lawrence of Arabia in present-day Pakistan in the 1930s.

Shahid has written the play in collaboration with US-based scholar and author Dr Fawzia AfzalKhan. The story revolves around T.H. Lawrence`s mysterious and suspicious activities when he was posted in Karachi after he had played a crucial role in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and creation of Saudi Arabia and other mod-ern Arab states like Iraq and Jordan.

Lawrence later moved to Lahore and stayed at the Nedou`s Hotel (on the site of Avari Hotel). Shahid and Fawzia did research for this play for several years and had a dramatic reading of its two acts at the New York University Abu Dhabi in 2019.

Shahid told this correspondent that a reading of the play will take place at Montclair State University, New Jersey on Nov 14 and another reading is planned at NYU-AD later in the year.

He said a dramatic reading of the play will be held as a part of Ajoka`s 40th anniversary programme next year. He said he was also working on the Urdu translation of the play, which would be produced in 2024.

Shahid, primarily a Punjabi/Urdu playwright, has previously written two short plays in English including `Trapped` about 9/11 and was presented at a drama festival in Venice, California in 2002, and `The Last Tree` which was published by the Climate Change Theatre Network in 2017 and has been performed in various countries.

He also worked with British playwright Tania Ronder on the English adaptation of his famous Urdu play `Dara` which was produced by the National Theatre London in 2015 and published by Nick Hern publishers.

Dr Fawzia is an author of several books on feminism and theatre. It is worth mentioning that she also acted in `Barri` in 1987, Shahid Nadeem`s first play for Ajoka, which was directed by the late Madeeha Gauhar.