In a rare and remarkable effort to preserve the global history of print media, Shashanka Sekhar Dash, a passionate collector from Jaipur in Odisha, has assembled an impressive collection of foreign language newspapers, spanning continents, cultures, and decades.
His growing archive features newspapers in a wide range of languages including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and more. Each edition offers a unique lens into world events, regional perspectives, and linguistic diversity — from Cold War headlines and Olympic games coverage to political revolutions and scientific milestones.
“Newspapers are mirrors of their time, and when they’re in a foreign language, they carry the added weight of perspective,” said Dash. “I collect not just for content, but for design, typography, language evolution, and cultural reflection.”
His collection — sourced from embassies, international bookstores, donations, and travels — includes over 300 rare editions, some dating back to the mid-20th century, and covering events like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Apollo 11 moon landing, 2008 Beijing Olympics, and more.
Shashanka now plans to digitize his newspaper archive and share it with language departments, journalism schools, and libraries, to help promote cross-cultural literacy and historical understanding.
Collectors, scholars, and journalists alike have praised his work as an important step in preserving the global heritage of print journalism — one newspaper at a time.
