Lahore ─ Topophilia of Space and Place

The book is a reconstruction of the historical and cultural images of Lahore, one of the oldest cities in the Indian Subcontinent. The author has chosen an interdisciplinary approach that combines the studies in cultural anthropology, literary and historical sources, art history, and humanistic geography. The central point of the analysis is topophilia (lit. love of place), the term used to describe the strong sense of place or identity among certain peoples and groups. In the present book, topophilia of Lahore is represented through interrelations of different types of urban locations, landscapes, architecture and artefacts, on the one hand, and human attitudes, rituals, and manners and customs, - on the other hand. The author's aim is to show how the historical and cultural developments of people build up the cultural landscape of the city and how the geographical place and space, in their turn, influence behaviour and identity of Lahore's citizens.

Anna Suvorova, Professor of Indo-Islamic Culture, is currently Head of Department of Asian Literatures at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). A specialist in Islam in the Indian subcontinent, classical Urdu literature, Indian and Pakistani theatre and representative arts, she frequently lectures on these subjects in the Universities all over the world. She has also translated many works of the Urdu prose-both pre-modern and contemporary-into Russian. She is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic society of Great Britain and Ireland; of Academic Advisory Board, Centre for the Study of Gender & Culture (Pakistan); of the Russian Artists' Union, and some other academic societies in Russia and abroad. Professor Anna Suvorova has been conferred Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the President of Pakistan for her research of Pakistani Literature and Cultural Heritage.