Pakistan

Introduction

2020 marked the advent of Covid-19 in Pakistan and saw the proliferation of online literary events, including a celebration of the 100^th anniversary of birth of the Urdu writer, Mohammed Khalid Akhtar. The year saw new novels by established writers Ayad Akhtar, Feryal Ali Gauhar, Moni Mohsin and Raza Rabbani and debut fiction by Sascha Aurora Akhtar, Talat Faraz, Osman Haneef, Sairish Hussain and Saba Karim Khan, among others. There were new poetry collections by Afshan Shafi, Sahibzada Riaz Noor and Ejaz Rahim while Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s memoir combined poetry and prose. There was significant life writing by Javed Amir, Yasser Latif Hamdani and Victoria Schofield; important translations of Munir Ahmed Badini, Justice Haziq Ul Khairi, Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz; pioneering gender studies by Fawzia Afzal Khan and Kiran Nazir Ahmed; anthologies by Claire Chambers Nafhesa Ali and Richard Phillips, by Taha Kehar and Sana Munir and thought-provoking non-fiction by Anam Zakaria, among others.

The publisher Maktaba-e-Daniyal was shortlisted for the Prix Voltaire for courage, amid growing censorship, after the raid on its offices to seize the Urdu translation of Mohammed Hanif’s 2008 novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Meanwhile Hanif’s 2019 novel Red Birds won the KLF-Getz Pharma award; The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali by Uzma Aslam Khan and Melody of a Tear by Haroon Khalid Akhtar won the UBL Literary awards for the best fiction and debut fiction respectively; Tariq Rahman’s Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia: A History received both the KLF-Habib Metro Award and the UBL Award for non-fiction and the late Asif Farrukhi received UBL’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Pakistan Academy of Letters 2018 awards included the Kamal-e-Fun lifetime achievement award for Munir Ahmed Badini; the Patras Bokhari award for Fatima Bhutto’s novel The Runaways and the Daud Kamal award for Sara Javed’s poetry volume Meraki. Raniya Hosain’s essay “To be a Woman in Pakistan” won The Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize for women; Nihal Ijaz Khan’s “The Smokesense of Pluvistan” won the Abdus Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction and Haider Shahbaz’s translation of Khalida Husain’s “Samundar” won India’s Jawad Memorial Award. In the United States, Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s Comb received the 2019 Sable books Hybrid Award; Kanza Javed’s “Rani” won the Reynolds Price Prize for Fiction; Huma Qureshi’s “The Jam Maker” won the Harper’s Bazaar short story competition. In Britain, Maham Javeed’s “Instruction Manual: How to Find Your Vagina” was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia). British-born 28-year-old Sairish Hussain’s The Family Tree was shortlisted for a Costa Book Award.

Hussain’s incisive and riveting first novel captures three generations of a British family of Pakistani origin. In Bradford, 1993, Amjad’s wife dies, giving birth to Zehra their daughter. Amjad refuses the advice of his traditional mother Ammi to re-marry. He brings up both Zehra and her older brother, Saahil, with Ammi’s help, but the friendships between Amjad and the supportive Harun and between Saahil and Harun’s son Ehsan, are both disrupted by unexpected tragedy. Through their families and Amjad’s competitive, more successful brother Javed, the novel interweaves Muslim rituals and celebrations into daily life and tells of the bright, intelligent Zehra developing into a strong, socially-committed woman. The text constantly challenges stereotypes and portrays the many manifestations of racism, from overt violence and abuse to prejudiced opinions, innuendoes and exclusions, personal and professional. The narrative quietly builds in politics and the television and press coverage of 9/11, 7/7 and other events which contribute to the Islamophobia faced by the protagonists. At the same time, supportive English friends and acquaintances and a Sikh businessman play a pivotal role at a time of need, adding to the multi-dimensional text that Hussain skillfully creates.

Today’s Covid-19 world assumes a particular significance in the medical doctor Faraz Talat’s debut novel Seventy Four, set in a dystopian, post-pandemic world. Razia Nikoladze, an expatriate scientist of Pakistani origin, is almost 74-years old. She cannot receive medical treatment after that age, according to a national edict. This law is thrown into question when Razia falls ill; her research work is of vital importance to the world: she is exploring the possibilities of permanently eliminating mutant pathogens. Narrated by her caring brother Faiz, the text alternates between first and third person, to tell of medical advances, close sibling bonds and Razia’s relationship with her ex-husband, Vadim Nikoladze.

Osman Haneef’s accomplished debut Blasphemy: The Trial of Danesh Masih blends fact and fiction, the real and surreal, to make a biting critique of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and their misuse, particularly the victimization of minorities. A young lawyer, Sikander Ghaznavi is shot by unknown assailants outside Quetta high court while defending Danesh Masih, a 13-year-old Christian boy, falsely accused of blasphemy by the local holy man, an all-powerful Pir, a holy man. The narrative moves between past and present to tell of Sikander’s return to Quetta, his homeland, after many years in the United States, of his sense of responsibility towards his late, much loved nanny’s Christian friend Alice and Alice’s children, Mena and Danesh, and of his discovery that the influential and seemingly pious Pir is a notorious pedophile. Sikander’s abortive romance with Sanah, a young woman lawyer, is central to the plot. Patriarchy, power and powerlessness also permeate Saba Karim’s first novel Skyfall which tells of Rania, a well-educated young woman and her battle for empowerment and justice. This takes her from Lahore, specifically Heera Mandi, the red light area where she grew up, to New York and back. Karim has been highly praised for her vivid, detailed prose and for “immediately immersing the reader in the chilling world of the unseen, the unknown and unexperienced” (Shanal Kazi The Friday Times 12 Feb 2021).

The year’s fiction debuts included Hina Belitz’s To Lahore, with Love, Safinah Danish Elahi’s Eye on the Prize, Bushra Naqi’s Through the Cracks, Sara Naveed’s The World between Us and the poet, Sascha A. Akhtar’s Of Necessity and Wanting, which consists of two lively novellas and a story capturing Karachi, that multi-faced city of contrasts. Her unusual and sensitive tale, “Jannat Ki Huwa: The Air in Paradise”, is divided into three parts named after ragas and recreates the dreams and aspirations of Javed, a young man, and Zainab, an independent young woman. He is fascinated by Bollywood and the air-conditioned rich, while sweating away through electricity failures in both his stifling hostel and office. She works in a beauty parlour, supports her entire family and escapes from her overcrowded, dysfunctional home to itwaar bazaar or Clifton Beach. Their increasingly interlinked lives lead to discoveries which embody their hopes and those of their city.

The leading politician Raza Rabbani’s second work of fiction, The Smile Snatchers: A Novella, explores art and creativity and was shortlisted for the Getz-Pharma Award. A celebrated painter, Zahoor, struggles to finish the portrait of a little girl, but is overtaken by incidents, real and surreal, which highlight the suffering of innocent children in a cruel, violent world. His encounters range from a boy-survivor of the Aleppo bombing, victims of the Peshawer Army Public School massacre and children brutalized by age-old social customs; this leads him to re-assess his work and contemplate the creative passion of famous artists.

Literature, life and creativity permeate Ayad Akhtar’s second novel, Homeland Elegies, narrated by Ayad Akhtar, an American-born Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright and the son of Pakistan-born parents, as is the author. Described as “auto-fiction”, this fluid and remarkable narrative employs interconnected essays to contemplate America and the issues of identity, skin colour and faith that Ayad negotiates. Into this, he builds in well-known figures, including a lively account of his father, a cardiologist, being called upon to treat Donald Trump in the 1990s and later voting for Trump to the angst of Ayad. Through such anecdotes, Ayad portrays generational family conflicts, socio-political events and the many dimensions of America. He writes of his family’s traditional Muslim beliefs. He contrasts his father’s identification with America and his disparagement of Pakistan, with Ayad’s silent mother, who longs for her homeland and becomes a more communicative parent during her Pakistan trips. He builds in the complex relationships between Pakistan and the United States following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This includes his portrayal of a Pakistan doctor who regards communists as godless, leaves his practice among the downtrodden in America to work in Pakistan, among the mujahidin, but later turns against the Americans. Akhtar builds in the devastating impact of post-9/11 on American Muslims and the prejudices he encounters, which he combats with a strong assertion of his American identity. All this is interwoven with the literary influences which forge Ayad’s career as a successful playwright and how he transmutes real-life anecdotes into his incisive creative work.

Moni Mohsin’s sixth work of fiction, The Impeccable Integrity of Ruby R, a riveting, lively novel, combines political satire with a sensitive portrayal of young woman’s dreams and illusions in her quest for self in a harsh unequal world. Ruby Rauf, a Pakistani scholarship student in London, is mesmerized with the political address by Saif Haq, a one-time actor and founder of Integrity, a new political party, which promises to reform Pakistan, punish the corrupt and help the poor. Ruby gives up her master’s degree in London to accept Saif’s offer of a lucrative job in Lahore, in Integrity’s publicity team. Through Ruby’s successful “image-building” of Saif, including clever catchy slogans, hashtags, photos and videos on twitter and other social media outlets, alongside her aggressive verbal counterattack on those who criticize or troll him, the novel provides telling insights into the socio-political impact of social media and its manipulations today, far beyond Pakistani politics. Ruby’s commitment to Saif and Integrity also reveals her inability to face reality, which Saif uses to great advantage: he is a vain, conceited man with double standards, a philanderer presented as a dutiful husband; his party is supported by corrupt financiers while his friend Faisal thinks out and advises Saif on his political policies and statements. Ruby’s moment of enlightenment comes at great cost.

Feryal Ali Gauhar’s third novel An Abundance of Roses recreates Pakistan’s scenic northern areas and juxtaposes the wonders of nature with the recklessness and cruelty of humans and the resultant ongoing ecological disasters. Here, the italicized, collective voice of the natural world, alternates with the third-person narrative which tells of the small village, its fiercely patriarchal society and intimations of change. The lives, conflicts and betrayals of the inhabitants and the suffering of the women are set against the danger of avalanches, broken mountainsides, new lakes, frost and snow. Sophia Khan’s second novel The Flight of the Arconaut is an imaginative dystopian work, set on the technologically advanced island, Atlantis, with stark divisions of class, race, community, colour and gender, which Nyx, a young woman, defies.

2020 saw several interesting poetry collections. Afshan Shafi published her first full-length collection, Quiet Women, with poems skillfully illustrated by Samya Arif, Marjan Baniasadi and Ishita Basu Malik. Her work reveals a nuanced interplay of words and images which often capture the unspoken, inner lives of women, including the confusions of mental illness. The title poem, with its references to falling mirrors, feet that seem to belong to another and people dancing on ice-hills, embodies a woman’s longing for freedom and escape. “Ativan. Atraxia. A July Evening” blends reality and fantasy to negotiate a disturbed child’s troubled world. The experimental “Buried amongst the Flowers in Pakistan” creates brilliant landscapes but is “composed entirely of lines found in the writings of Rumi/Robert Browning/Vladmir Nabokov” (22). Imagery is paramount in Shafi’s work, including her prose poem “Four Movements of Light” and her five-part sequence “Smoke Borders” which moves through the narrator’s reflection on different aspects of life and self.

The year also saw two new poetry collections by Saad Ali, Ekphrases: Book One and Biblio Alpha: Prose Poems. Sahibzada Riaz Noor’s second collection Bibi Mubarika and Babur is a rich narrative poem which tells of the Emperor Babur and his Afghan wife, Bibi Mubarika Yousufzai, The poem recreates history: Babur’s childhood in Ferghana, the kingdoms he lost and gained, his conquest of Kabul and his sumptuous 1519 marriage to the young, beautiful Bibi Mubarika to win over her people. The poem follows him through his subsequent conquests in India, including Jhelum, Lahore, Peshawer, Delhi, Rajastan and Bengal; it tells of Babur’s death in 1530 and the loss of India by his son, Humayun by 1546. At this point Bibi Mubarika comes into her own: to fulfill Babur’s wish that he should be buried in Kabul, she travels to Agra and brings back Babur’s body, with due courtesies extended by India’s ruler, Sher Shah Suri. Ejaz Rahim’s new collection Garden of Secrets Revisited: An Epic Poem on Divine-Human Encounter is a philosophical work inspired by Persian and Urdu classics, Shabistari’s Gulshan-e-Raaz and Iqbal’s Gulshan-e-Raaz-e-Nau respectively. Divided into 15 sections, the narrative begins with “Book I: Petitioning the Holy Prophet” and culminates with “Book XV: A Debate on Worldly Pain and Suffering”, contemplating the universe, its antiquity and history, wars and conflicts, its scientific discoveries, its mathematicians, poets, philosophers, writers and kings across many cultures.

Life writing has gained increasing prominence in Pakistani English literature. The poet and essayist Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s Comb, a memoir, employs both poetry and prose to advantage. Hashmi recreates an enchanted childhood in Peshawer, tells of her co-educational school there, builds in the rituals of Ramadan and Eid, and tells of trips to Peshawer’s fabled Qissa Khwani bazaar, the Khyber Pass and nearby mountains. She includes the ancient, multi-layered, multi-ethnic history of the region as well as glimpses of her life in San Francisco, where she now lives. She comments on the cultural commingling central to her sense of self and her writing. She writes too of her travels, her college years at Kinnaird and Reed, and devotes considerable space to the changes which overtook Peshawer following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the advent of refugees, the rise of the Taliban and the ramifications of global politics.

Javed Amir, ex-diplomat now settled in America, describes his literary travels in his elegant memoir Wanderer between Worlds, which includes photographs. He begins with “The Role of Lahore: The City Which Defines Me” and continues to interweave references to his favourite writers and texts connected to the cities, streets, roads or buildings that he visits. His narrative includes references to James Joyce, Camus, T. S. Eliot, James Baldwin, V. S. Naipaul, Orhan Pamuk and their respective cities Dublin, Paris, London, New York, Trinidad and Istanbul, among many others. The Silk Road and Beyond: Narratives of a Muslim Historian by Iftikhar H. Malik, is multi-layered, multi-cultural scholarly work which links Malik’s travels with history, trade, culture, literature, mystical texts and more. Beginning with “Memoirs”, set in Tamman (Pakistan), Delhi, Michigan and London respectively, he moves on to “Traversing the Silk Road”, which includes journeys to Bukhara, Samarkand, Jerusalem, Cordova, Sicily and Tuscany and ends with “Nestling in the West”, which incorporates his sojourn in Finland, a country with a Tartar, Russian and European heritage.

Victoria Schofield’s memoir The Fragrance of Tears: My Friendship with Benazir Bhutto is a rare and unusual account which provides personal insights into Benazir from a unique perspective: Schofield and Benazir became close friends as Oxford undergraduates. Schofield flew to Pakistan to be with Benazir when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was overthrown, tried for murder and executed by the military regime of Zia ul Haq. She writes of Benazir’s political life too and its vicissitudes and also defends the more controversial aspects or Benazir’s career. She was with Benazir in 2007, when she returned to Pakistan from exile and faced the first attempt on her life: a bomb blast in Karachi. Schofield’s account includes Benazir’s interaction with political leaders ranging from Rajiv Gandhi to Margaret Thatcher and is enlivened by references to Benazir and Schofield’s conversations, letters and reunions with old Oxford friends in London as well as Benazir’s marriage and the birth of her three children. Sadequain: Artist and Poet: A Memoir by Syed Ali Naqvi provides invaluable insights into Sadequain and his career since Naqvi and Sadequain are first cousins and grew up together. The book traces Sadequain’s development as a poet, artist and calligrapher and is accompanied by wonderful photographs and illustrations.

Columnist Yasser Latif Hamdani’s biography Jinnah: A Life is a thought-provoking addition to Partition literature which includes unusual insights into Jinnah’s relationship with Mahatma Gandhi and B.R. Ambedkar. Hamdani also captures the changing moods of that era, diverse nationalist movements, colonial polices and the unexpected twists and turns which Jinnah negotiated. The Ahrar and Deobandi movements which opposed Jinnah, the scheduled castes and other marginalized groups who supported him and the contribution of Zafarullah in shaping the 1940 Lahore Resolution are all built in. Hamdani argues that Jinnah aimed “to create a truly and federated structure, with autonomous regions that would checkmate the idea of the tyranny of the majority”. He adds, “the complex and nuanced set of events that led to the Partition of India do not quite gel with the ideological and nationalist mythologies that the people of India and Pakistan have been subjected to” (225). He leads up to Partition and its aftermath and Jinnah’s hopes for Pakistan. The Pakistan publication of Ishtiaq Ahmed’s Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History is due in 2021 but so far, its reception appears to reflect the polarization between India and Pakistan over Partition: it has been favourably reviewed in the former, and criticized on social media in the latter.

Among critical studies, Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan through its Women Singers by Fawzia Afzal Khan looks at issues of gender, culture, music and art in Pakistan. She examines the life and work of the early post-Partition generation of performers, tells of changing times, the emergence of a new breed of singers and the impact of technology and globalization. Her discussions include classical, Sufi, folk, and pop music and discusses well known singers such as Malika Pukhraj, Abida Parveen, Madame Noor Jehan, Nazia Hasan, Tahira Syed, Tina Sani, Meesha Shafi and Zoe Viccaji. Stories with Oil Stains: The World of Women Digest Writers in Pakistan by Kiran Nazir Ahmed challenges stereotypes surrounding stories in popular women’s digests, usually dismissed as frivolous. She unravels narratives or sub-texts of a much greater complexity than the obvious trope which “centred desire around marriage, familial bliss and heterosexual romance”. Her interviews with writers (often under pseudonym to safeguard their privacy) reveal how their fiction — some based on personal experiences — proved to have strong resonances with the unspoken emotions of their readers and fellow writers who contacted them thereafter. The online Words without Borders brought out a special issue: “Beyond the Canon: Urdu Feminist Writing”, edited by Haider Shahbaz, which includes critical essays as well as translations of Yasmeen Hameed, Khalida Hussain, Hijab Imtiaz Ali, Miraji, Sara Shagufta and Parveen Shakir.

The anthology A Match Made in Heaven; British Muslim Women Write of Love and Desire edited by Claire Chambers, Nafhesa Ali and Richard Phillips consists of 16 stories contesting gender-biased cliches. Many are written by authors of Pakistani origin and include accomplished, original works by Roopa Farooki, Sarvat Hasin, Sairish Hussain, Sabyn Javeri and Bina Shah among others. The Stained Glass Window: Stories of the Pandemic from Pakistan edited by Taha Kehar and Sana Munir is a rich multi-hued collection which captures various dimension of pandemic life in Pakistan ranging from the solitude of an elderly woman, the traumas of loss and the crisis of a joint family in lockdown to the pressure on health workers and the wages of poverty, unemployment and limited medical facilities. The many notable contributors include Mehvash Amin, Safinah Danish Elahi, Attiya Dawood, Aamer Hussein, Navid Shahzad and both co-editors.

In 2020, the 80^th birthday of the distinguished poet Kishwar Naheed was celebrated with Salt in Wounds: Poems of Kishwar Naheed edited by Ali Kamran, with Urdu translations alongside the Urdu original. Naheed and Fahmida Riaz (1946-48) are both great iconic feminist poets. Tahira Naqvi’s translations of Riaz’s The Body Torn and Other Poems capture the spectacular imagery and diversity of Riaz’s work and its development. Naqvi divides Riaz’s poetry chronologically into six sections. The title takes its name from Riaz’s famous collection Badan Darida, a groundbreaking work which broke many taboos and spoke fearlessly about women and their sexuality. Naqvi’s translations cover a wide range of subjects, including mysticism, but also reveal that Riaz’s bold, egalitarian and courageous poetry reflects her increasing political activism, including her exile by Zia’s military regime. The book includes a powerful sequence of poems, dated 1980, which condemn state persecution, a biased legal system, prejudiced courts of law and untold the suffering of her homeland and its people; all this merges the poet’s anguish and her resource: the power of the written word. The collection leads up to Riaz’s moving, intensely personal poem “You Kabir” on the loss of Kabir, her son.

Justice Haziq Ul Khairi’s In Retrospect: An Autobiography translated from Urdu by Durdana Soomro is a lively narrative beginning with Khairi’s literary family in pre-Partition Delhi, his migration to Karachi in 1947 and his education there. He goes on to tell of his career as a lawyer and a judge, including the legal and public issues he supported or opposed as Pakistan’s cultural and political climate gradually changed. Ghalib: Call of Angel is translated from Urdu by Sarfaraz K. Niazi, edited by Sibtain Naqvi and illustrated by Sadequain; Mataloona and Mizh: Pasthun Proverbs and a Frontier Classic by Akbar S. Ahmed, the distinguished academic, consists of Ahmed’s translations of Pashto proverbs and an English monograph, Mizh, by Evelyn Howell, a colonial political agent, posted in the then-Frontier region.

The award-winning and celebrated Baloch writer, novelist and civil servant Munir Ahmed Badini’s stories in God and the Blind Man are translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch, bringing together a wide range of tight accomplished tales. Several provide a moving contemplation of life and death, including “The Last Breath” capturing the complex emotions of Murad sitting beside his dying mother; “After the Drums Fell Silent” portrays two murderers dancing away at a nomad celebration, but guilt soon catches up with them. Several tales such as “My Son’s Classmate” and “The Widow’s File” highlight Pakistan’s social iniquities, while “A New Route” is an unusual tale of desire and perfidy.

2020 saw many acclaimed non-fiction works including Oceanic Islam: Muslim Universalism and European Colonialism edited by Ayesha Jalal and Sugata Bose, Pakistan’s Terror Conundrum by Khaled Ahmed and The Bhutto Dynasty: The Struggle for Power in Pakistan by Owen Bennett-Jones. However, Anam Zakaria’s 1971: A People’s History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India is particularly significant since the events of that fateful year have passed into official public amnesia in Pakistan. As Taha Kehar says, “at a time the generation that witnessed the events of 1971 is gradually fading away, it is essential to understand the conflict without the blinkers of state-sanctioned hostility. Zakaria’s 1971 allows us to do just that” (News International: Literati 2 Feb, 2021). Zakaria’s research focuses on oral histories which she recorded in Pakistan, Bangladesh and, to a lesser extent, India. They provide important personal insights into political tensions between East and West Pakistan, the brutal 1971 military action and the sheer horror of the conflict, which culminated in East Pakistan becoming an independent Bangladesh. She includes references to Pakistani literary works about the 1971 war too.

2020 saw many Pakistani writings on Covid-19 published in journals and anthologies the world over. In literary discussions, the Pakistan-based newspaper supplements Dawn Books and Authors and The News International: Literati continued to make an important contribution. The annual art and literary journal The Aleph Review provided an incisive conversation between artist Shahzia Sikander and novelist Sadia Abbas linking their respective works and incorporating images of Sikander’s paintings. There are notable poems and short stories by well-known writers and new voices from Pakistan and other lands; the “Archive” section includes Tehmina Ahmed’s translation of Fahmida Riaz’s poems. There are interviews with writers including Sanam Maher, Shadab Zeest Hashmi and Omar Shahid Hamid. The Aleph Review started an online magazine covering different genres, including videos. Another online publication The Prelude has a strong literary focus, ranging from poetry, fiction, drama and interviews to research papers with discussions Nadeem Aslam, Mohammed Hanif and the short fiction of Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi, among others; both publications include international writers and contributors.

2020 continued to be productive for Pakistani English poetry, fiction and non-fiction; there were several notable translations into English too, but the seizure of the Urdu translation of Hanif’s celebrated English novel remains inexplicable. There were no published dramas.

The year saw very many losses: diplomat and writer Iqbal Akhund (b.1924); poet and fiction writer Colonel Nadir Ali (b. 1936); editor, journalist and short story writer Saleem Azmi (b. 1934); novelist and feminist Nisar Aziz Butt (b.1927); academic, editor, fiction writer and translator Asif Farrukhi (b.1959); columnist and civil servant Irfan Hussain (b.1944); film producer, poet, translator and screenwriter Mahmood Jamal (b.1948); conservationist and historian Suhail Lari (b. 1936); columnist, dramatist, fiction writer and civil servant Masood Mufti (b. 1934); columnist and playwright Abdul Qadir Junejo (b. 1945) and scholar, writer, poet and lexicographer Dr. Mazhar Masood Sherani (b. 1935). They are deeply mourned.