It was William Shakespeare who said that, “Some are born great, while others achieve greatness”. For the young girl Lareb Soomro, we at Daastan believe it might be both. Being able to bring our author’s writings to print, shaping her dream to reality, is one of the most fulfilling feelings we have ever witnessed as a company. From our Founder to our Editors and Designers, we all hold our breath and stare in awe as each piece finds its way to the racks of Qissa. Every once in a while, however, there comes along an author whose success seems so grand that our feeling of awe becomes tenfold.
Book Launch of Lareb Soomro, held under Literary Evenings Vol. 2
Lareb’s story of success didn’t start when she published her book, in fact they began the day she came into this world. She was born in the small town Larkana, which is filled to the brim with history of resilience and courage. She became another one who would contribute to the legacy. Lareb was born with a genetic defect that required her to go into surgery in the tender age of 3 months. After she grew up, in her early teens she faced and survived a road accident that left scars on her face. She was haunted by criticism and taunts, which followed her all the way to her passion of writing. Despite being continually discouraged, she stood strong in the face of everything, and finallypublished her book through Daastan.
Rising to Stardom:
The book made her a celebrity. She was interviewed by 14 news outlets for her story, and even offered the role of a news anchor at Larkano News HD. She believes in facing her demons face first, and encourages all her readers to find solutions for their problems instead of giving up.
[TRAILBLAZERS] Presenting you second episode of trailblazers where we showcase Daastan's social impact on community. See how we are challenging the status quo and providing authors the platform through which they can chase their dreams.Our second trailblazer is Lareb Soomro from Larkana, Sindh who was born with a genetic defect and underwent a facial surgery at the age of three months.In her early teens, she survived a fatal road accident which left permanent scars on her face. Despite of immense social pressure, taunts and criticism she pursued her passion to write and ultimately published at age of 15 to become Sindh's youngest published author.Her debut book 'The Secrets of Spring' is a horror novel which showcases the creativity of a teenage girl. Using Daastan's platform, Lareb was able to raise 25,000 PKR in a week through pre-orders to publish 100 copies of her work.Her book made her an overnight star. 14+ news outlets covered her story. She was also offered a role of TV anchoring in her hometown, Larkana by Larkano News HD.Her story explains that there is nothing out there which is NOT possible. We can always get what we want, provided that we put in enough effort and show resilience. Life is unfair and we must get used to it.Our #EmergingStar Lareb is currently writing the second part of the story which will be out in 2019. If you believe in what we do and want to support us then place an order of her hard copy @ https://www.meraqissa.com/book/342Price: 500 PKR#Daastan #EmergingStar #TrailBlazer #LarebSoomro #Larkana #Sindh
With Qissa nearing its second anniversary soon, we are proud of having published more than 200 books in 13 genres. Our authors are spread all over the world with active participation from 17 countries. Daastan happened upon a gem of a find. It came in the shape of Ms. Ramsha Babar, a doctor-to-be who had written a book about mental health, or more specifically schizophrenia, and wanted to publish it via Qissa.
Qissa Becomes the Hub of Previously Unvoiced Stories:
Our major focus in terms of the content we publish has always been to ensure that whatever work we receive is, of premium quality. Secondly, our chief concerns is to publish content that challenges the wrong conventions in our society. Our stories depict exceptions which not only hold their ground against the horrors in our society, but also help others in raising their voices and spreading awareness about it. It is due to this very reason that Daastan recurrently launched The Stories Untold. The themes we discuss, force people to pause and think about our maligned traditions that transgress basic human rights. Qissa features books about the abused, the ostracized, and the discarded, to humanize them and consequently help them make a place for themselves in this society
Humanizing Schizophrenia:
With her book“Broken Winged Birds”, Ms. Ramsha helped us further our cause. The book, inspired from her personal life. It highlights the symptoms and behavior of a person suffering from schizophrenia. Her book, above all brought, to light the fact that these patients could be treated and cured. The protagonist, after seeing visions and losing consciousness for a few days, finds herself in a mental health institution. She discovers that her family has given her up for lunacy. The book is a roller coaster ride in which all the essential components of one’s life; religion, science, society and the stigmas regarding mental health that we have to wade through every day, are brought to the front and seamlessly woven into a tale of education and awareness. Her work is carefully written combining technical medical knowledge with literature.
The novel, after raising 20,000 PKR, was brought into print just a few months after the author got in touch with us. It was later on featured on platforms such as Doctor’s Tribune, and The Humorists, who applauded the effort of the writer and her work.
If you have an expert’s opinion on a topic and want to share it with the world, reach out to us at Daastanand we will help propagate your voice to the masses.
If there is one thing that Daastan’s founder, Mr. Syed Ommer Amer, has always been proud of, it ishis exceptional team. Singular in passion, and absolutely awe inspiring, his team has been exceptional when it comes to helping Daastan achieve its goals. Mr. Ommer attributes Daastan’s continuous success to his brilliant team, that never fails to amaze him and has never let him down.
Meet Our Team
Ms. Mahnoor Naseer:
The first core member we will celebrate here is Mahnoor Naseer. Mahnoor’s journey with Daastan began when she applied to be a part of the debut batch of the Literary Fellowship. Throughout the fellowship, she showed more great potential. Upon graduating she launched a global digital platform for artists to share their work, called “The Ancient Souls”. Mahnoor helped Daastan set up our operations across the border in India, and eventually rose to the level of Editor in Chief with her constant struggles to aid Daastan. An electrical engineer by profession, she has never let her degree limit her to one field of expertise and has self-taught herself to be a storyteller, a poet, and a transcriptionist. Recently, she has had the honor of being selected as a Citizen Historian for the 1947 Partition Archive, which is a non-governmental and non-political organization working on the preservation and archival of the stories of people who were displaced in the 1947 partition.
Ms. Momina Latif:
The second member to be brought to the spotlight is Momina Latif, the design lead at Daastan. Momina is also Co-founder Jadugar and co., a company which provides corporate design solutions to products and brands. She is the brains and creative head behind most of the book covers published through Qissa. Moreover, she has provided Daastan with some sensational social media designs over the years. Momina has been selected as a mentee for the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, a program held in London which gives professional training to help develop women’s small, and medium enterprises into growing sustainable empires. She will be receiving training from the world’s best entrepreneurs in the world, who will teach her how to unlock her hidden potential and scale to newer heights.
Ms. Momina Latif selected as a mentee in Cherie Blair Foundation for Women
Ms. Sidra Amin:
The last, but essentially the most important one, is Sidra Amin. To sum her up in just a few lines would not be possible, but to name a few of her accomplishments – she is the Co-Founder Daastan, the person who has put piece upon piece together to bring the company where it stands now. Ms. Sidra Amin is also Co-Founder Words and Metaphors, KPK’s first spoken word platform, as well as Co-Founder Peshawar Book Club, which holds monthly meetings and discusses each book chosen in depth. Sidra is a mechatronics engineer by profession, and an expert at surprising everyone with all that she can achieve. She has lately been interviewed by Dergi, a lifestyle magazine which has a reach of more than 5000 across social media. In the interview, she talks about her inspirations, and how to create the magic that we see sparking off of her. She has also been invited asa speaker of the WomenWill panel at BizFest Peshawar.
Ms. Sidra Amin, invited as a speaker in Peshawar BizFest 2018
We are proud of these immensely talented women who have worked hard to establish Daastan. It is this combined effort that has given Daastan its wings. The secret to our success is definetely our team to whom all the credit goes! We also thank you for your constant support and welcome you to join us in our cause of putting a book in each hand!
We were joined by an internationally acclaimed scholar and content creator in May 2018, on Qissa. We have gotten the opportunity to cater to hundreds of intellectuals from all across Pakistan over the years, due to Qissa . A year into operations, we even started welcoming artists from abroad. It is always a moment of pride for us when well-known artists trust us with their life’s work by giving us the opportunity to supply them any services they might need.
“Inspired Discourses”– Words of An Artist
Such was the case ofMr. Aadil Farook, a non-commercial music artist celebrated worldwide for his work. The book titled “Inspired Discourses”, is an exceptional piece of writing that discusses the traditions and heritage of Islamic intellectuality. Mr. Aadil Farook’s writing brought forward the abundance of rich Islamic knowledge, in all schools of thoughts including but not limited to legality, theology, philosophy, as well as mysticism. His literary achievements are not limited to this book, rather he is also author of two other books of Islamic poetry. All of his books have received excellent reviews from all around the world.
Inspired discourses by Aadil Farook
The Author’s Journey:
His artistic abilities are not limited to writing. In fact, he is also known for 6 of his songs and 1 instrumental composition which have been aired on top FM stations across Pakistan. Mr. Aadil owns a website on his own name that he runs himself, and is eventually nominated for the British Muslim Awards, a highly prestigious award that honored the successes of Muslims residing in Britain. His list of achievements also include translations of two books authored by a mystic and Sufi, from Urdu to English making it widely available. Due to his exceptional accomplishments, he has been likened to Allama Muhammad Iqbal.
Daastan is proud to introduce this book in Pakistan. We are honored to play our part in spreading the love of literature. It has always been our aim to support and empower writers. Join us today and become a part of our struggle.
Our journey as one of the only reliable and quality assured self-publishing platforms in Pakistan has been an extraordinarily rewarding one. We have been the choice of writers of so many brilliant stories from all across the country. Authors from17 countries across the globe have chosen Qissa to publish their work till now. Our platform now features stories in more than two languages, and 13 genres. The way Qissa scaled and became global in the span of just a couple years stunned us, and heartened us even more, to keep pursuing our dream of providing publishing services that were easier, faster, cheaper, and helped us materialize the dreams of our writers.
The Stories That Built Our Story
During all this time, we have also had the opportunity to discover young potential. Qissa has published stories of writers as young as 19 years old from KPK, and 15 years old from Sindh. Both the writers received special marketing from the forum Daastan. By reading their stories, many others were inspired to write and publish themselves.
Fastest crowdfunded book, writthen by Ms. Laiba from KPK
Youngest author from Sindh, Ms. Lareb Soomro, publishes her first book through Daastan
Youngest Author from Punjab:
Another such whiz-kid was Ms. Sameen Irshad, who published her book “My Were-Story” at the age of 14, becoming the youngest author published through Daastan from Punjab. Her novel was 50,000 words long, and for a teenager it was extremely well written. The novel was based on the fantasy genre, featuring real life and legendary myths of werewolves. The team campaigned extensively for her crowdfunding, to bring her story to print.
A 14 year old, Ms. Sameen, authors a 50,000 words novel – My Were- Story
The Next Khalid Hosseini:
Next in line came the youngest author of Kashmir, a 22-year old lady named Ms. Ayesha Siddique, who wrote a story based in Afghanistan titled“The Freezing Point”. With accurate eerie imagery and use of Pashto language for someone who had neither visited the country, nor could speak the language. Her novel was remarkable in its writing style as it brought to mind the approach of the best-selling author Khalid Hosseini. It was a heart wrenching coming of age story, that highlighted the way terrorism and extremism had ravaged what was before a country that housed beauty. The author’s work was brought to print through crowdfunding. Her experience with Daastan was so amazing that she immediately decided to publish her second book on Qissa , when it was ready.
Ms. Ayesha becomes our youngest author from Kashmir
If you have a story that you wish the world to read, now is the time to begin your journey. Sign Up with us at Qissa and become a published author today!
