June 27, 2004

Amna says reading is equivalent to eating and drinking in her family. Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl and other such writers were the ones she grew up on. Georgette Heyer’s novels saw her through her years as a teenager. Currently, she reads “whatever I can lay my hands on, be it fiction, biographies, etc.” As a Pakistani student in the United States post 9/11, Amna says that she was pleasantly surprised by the kind of atmosphere she found when she arrived on campus. Instead of the suspicion and hostility one would have expected to see in the US, what she found was totally the opposite. There was immense interest in her part of the world but at the same time there was also warmth and understanding from her class fellows and teachers at the university.

For Amna, studying in the United States has been a very encouraging experience. Till then, all her education was in Pakistan. Amna highlights two books that she finds of note and interest and recommends to readers back home particularly those of her age. Currently a freshman at Temple, Amna’s interests include listening and playing music, reading, not staying at home and keeping abreast with the happenings in the world.

Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro is one of the books she recently read and thoroughly enjoyed. It’s a book about an artist and his life during the World War and how it affected him and his relationship with his family, his peers and students and his friends. The book is unusual and unique in the way that it has been written. The narrator relates the events of his life from memory. The reader is taken on this winding path of happiness, misery, dejection, loyalty and despair. The book brings tears as well as a smile and is definitely a must-read.

Another book 11 Minutes by Paulo Coelho can be described as very interesting. It’s a true story about a young Brazilian girl who has lived her life in a small town. Craving for adventure, she goes to Rio de Janeiro where a chance meeting with a Swiss club owner lands her in Geneva. She was promised a life of fame and fortune but she ends up working as a prostitute instead.

It’s the story of this young girl and how she earns her living and her ticket back to Brazil, working at a place where she has to sell her body. It makes you look at this ‘frowned on’ profession with new eyes: the eyes of the prostitute herself. How she got into this line of work, what are her thoughts about it, will she ever get out of it or will she become addicted to the easy cash, sex and liquor that is the foundation of this profession?

The book is gripping right from the first page and succeeds in highlighting a viewpoint that most of us in society don’t get to hear. “I recommend it to everyone aged 17 and above, and by setting an age limit, it can be assured that everyone 17 above and under would want to read it now!” says Amna.

Amna Rizvi looks forward to the day when she also enters the brave and exciting world of journalism. She is itching to come back to Pakistan in her summer vacations to do some stories on issues that she seriously thinks about.

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