January 1, 2002

THE outgoing year was a particularly fruitful one for Pakistani English literature. There were translations of Urdu poetry and prose, new original work in English, reprints as well as exciting young talent. The book that everyone was talking about was the The story of noble rot by Uzma Aslam Khan (Penguin, India). This accomplished, incisive and imaginative first novel uses satire and language with skill to tell a riveting story of exploitation, loss and longing. Malika, a poor carpenter’s wife, is propelled into the orbit of the insidious Mr Masood, the owner of a carpet factory and his wife, a Cholistan beauty, to save Malika’s husband from penury and exploitation and her son from child labour.

Social inequity and an undercurrent of crime and violence, also form the backdrop to Bina Shah’s idealistic first novel, Where they dream in blue (Alhamra) about an American-born Pakistani boy on his first visit to Karachi and his attempt to help a poor child beggar. Its great strength is the fluid prose and vivid detail. The Manchester-born Qaisra Shahraz’s first novel, The holy woman (Black Amber, UK), set in rural Pakistan, is a romantic story, about a beautiful, rich, educated young woman who is married off to the Quran, to keep the property in the family. She becomes an Islamic scholar and thus empowered, she travels the world over, but the memory of her lost love never leaves her.

OUP continues its promotion of Pakistani literature with an excellent collection Bitter gourd and other stories by Talat Abbasi. These sensitive, tight, polished and sophisticated stories are permeated with a strong feminist consciousness and often deal with poverty and displacement too. Many have been anthologized already in America, where the author lives, and some used as college texts. OUP has also brought out The Bapsi Sidhwa omnibus, which brings together all four of Bapsi’s popular and much loved novels, in a sumptuous hardback edition for a bargain price — a real treat indeed.

Fear of mirrors by Tariq Ali (Alhamra) about the rise and fall of Communism in Eastern Europe combines elements of a thriller with a profound knowledge of history. Spanning three generations, it is narrated by an erstwhile party member from East Germany to his son in the new Germany. Meanwhile the British born Hanif Kureishi, has gone from strength to strength and has published a much-praised new novel Gabriel’s gift (Faber, UK). Kenize Mourad, the lost daughter of a Turkish mother and an Indian father, adopted by a French family, discovered her oriental family as an adult. She occupies a somewhat ambiguous space in subcontinental writing. Her Memories of an Ottoman princess (Alhamra) is the English translation of her poignant, best selling French novel. Set against a rich, historical and political backdrop, she reconstructs the story of her mother, daughter of the last Ottoman Sultan, and follows her from the palaces of Istanbul and her exile in Lebanon, to marriage and purdah in pre-Partition Lucknow and her death after childbirth, in war-time France.

The gun tree: one woman’s war (OUP) by Zahrah Nasir, is a creative memoir, built up by short sentences and brief paragraphs, to provide a rare eye-witness account by a woman writer, of her journey into Afghanistan, with the mujahideen, during the 1980’s. She also tells of her own personal journey from a battered wife, on the edge of breakdown, to a woman able to confront her fears.

Leaving home — towards a new millennium: a collection of English prose by Pakistani writers*, (OUP) brings together fiction and non-fiction about migration and identity, by writers ranging from Hanif Kureishi and Bapsi Sidhwa to Irfan Husain and Anwer Mooraj.

This year also saw the publication of a dazzling first collection of Pakistani English poetry, Memory stains by Hima Raza (Minerva UK). She has experimented with language and rhythm, to build up a series of disciplined poems with a sparse and powerful imagery which endow every word, its own unique space, and its own resonance. Yielding years by M. Athar Tahir (National Book Foundation) is a more substantial collection that its predecessor and brings together some of the poet’s best work, including his mystical poems.

There are three new enjoyable English books, set in Pakistan, for children too. Billa Nayee and other stories by Imran Kureshi (OUP) is a collection of lively and entertaining tales of village life. Animal medicine by Bina Shah (OUP) consists of truly beautiful and magical stories about humans and their relationship with animals, ranging from crows and butterflies, to donkeys and snakes. Furthermore, the skillful combination of storytelling, language and science, has enormous creative potential in the classroom. Courage to dream by Amita Sher (Ferozsons) is all about horses and tells the inspiring story of a disadvantaged stable hand, who becomes a jockey.

Meanwhile some of the best Urdu literature is now being made available in English through increasing translations. The distance of a shout by Kishwar Naheed (OUP) selected and edited by Asif Farrukhi, consists of well-known translations by Rukhsana Ahmed, Mahmood Jamal and Asif Farrukhi himself, among others. The power and passion of Kishwar Naheed’s verse come through very strongly.

Kishwar Naheed is known for her exploration of the circumscribed, oppressed lives of women, as is that of several women writers of an earlier generation, including Khadija Mastur. Inner courtyard by Khadija Mastur, translated by Neelam Hussain (Simorgh) has been described by critic Mohammed Khalid Akhtar as an “excellent” translation, a “powerful, disturbing” novel with “dark psychological depths”, written with “sensitivity, subtlety” and “economy”. This story of Partition, migration and middle class family life, is filtered through the eyes of Aaliya, who refuses to become the victim of a patriarchal society.

Alhamra’s commendable series of reprints this year, includes translations of two timeless classics by the distinguished Urdu scholar, David J. Mathews, the elegy, The battle of Karbala by Mir Anis and the novel, God’s own land (Khuda ki basti) by Shaukat Siddiqui. Two small Alhamra pocket books, Urdu: the final book by Ibne Insha, translated by David Mathews and Letters to Uncle Sam by Saadat Hasan Manto translated by Khalid Hasan consist of satirical writings; some remain witty and prescient, but a good amount are dated and fall flat.

Khalid Hasan’s translations of Manto however are justifiably famous. The fluency of his English prose not only brings Manto’s to life, but has a literary quality of its own. The 700-page A wet afternoon: stories, sketches, reminiscences by Saadat Hasan Manto, translated by Khalid Hasan (Alhamra) is a positive feast. But if you want different translators, then there is the paperback For freedom’s sake: selected stories and sketches by Saadat Hasan Manto, selected and introduced by Mohammed Asaduddin (OUP), which also includes Manto on Ismat Chughtai.

Conversely, Ismat Chughtai writes on Manto in the title essay of her book My friend, my enemy: essays, reminiscences and portraits translated by Tahira Naqvi (Kali, India). This wonderful collection is so outspoken and so alive, that each item is a gem, but it’s a pity the date of each has not been given.

Fahmida Riaz’s much acclaimed trilogy of prose narratives examining violence, divisions and politics in the subcontinent has been translated by Aquila Ismail. City Press has brought out two, so far: Zinda Bahar Lane, her impression of a visit to Dhaka, two decades after the 1971 war and Reflections in a cracked mirror about the brutalization and ethnic violence in Karachi. Both are remarkable for their honesty, their analysis and the terrible suffering, to which Fahmida Riaz bears witness, and her refusal to brush the past away, as if it never happened.

* Edited by Muneeza Shamsie herself — Ed.

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