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Longing for anywhere else but the place I’m in is a feeling I’m deeply familiar with. During the lockdown it becomes more... Updated 31 Jul, 2020 07:30am

“All writers live in a dolphin-like progression, above and below the waterline, of isolation and intense... Updated 08 Jun, 2020 03:59pm

There’s a parable somewhere which says that each of us has nine — or is it 12? — teachers who guide us to our goa... Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am

Nisar Aziz Butt, who passed away on February 7, was a highly erudite and multi-faceted writer in whose mind time... Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am

I approach biographies of my favourite writers with some trepidation, more so when the writer in question has ... Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am

Reading on BBC2 about a series of programmes on the novels focusing on empire and race that shaped our world, I recalled Published 24 Nov, 2019 07:07am

As I drove through the unfamiliar suburb of Acton on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I was thinking how London, with its... Published 22 Sep, 2019 06:58am

In November last year, during a session about literature and language at the International Islamic University in... Published 21 Jul, 2019 05:53am

Yesterday, from a table piled with my favourite books, I retrieved a translation of The Four Dervishes. I had ... Published 12 May, 2019 07:02am

I arrived at Chennai airport from Dubai early on a mid-January morning to be greeted at immigration by a smiling... Published 03 Mar, 2019 07:08am

They were born five years apart. Both Leos, both poets, prose writers, radicals. I had barely stopped mourning one... Published 30 Dec, 2018 07:09am

At the age of 31, I read widely in about four languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish. By the age of 36 ... Updated 15 Oct, 2018 02:24pm

When Shahbano Alvi, my friend and the publisher of my forthcoming book, asked me to give the first of a series of... Published 05 Aug, 2018 07:28am

The tiny woman standing in front of me at the crowded reception turned around and said, “Hello, I’m Pat.” I... Published 03 Jun, 2018 07:05am

On a cool February morning, I flew into Islamabad to speak at the Mother Languages Literature Festival at Lok Virsa... Published 01 Apr, 2018 06:49am

One book I most enjoyed reading this year was a freshly translated selection of Ismat Chughtai’s short stories,... Published 24 Dec, 2017 07:03am

Late summer, 1991. On a break between teaching classes at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), I found... Published 29 Oct, 2017 06:06am

In August 2007, when smartphones and social media ‘connections’ weren’t ubiquitous, I returned to London from... Published 27 Aug, 2017 07:00am

Last month the critic Boyd Tonkin, whom I have often worked with for about 25 years, wrote to ask me if I’d like ... Published 02 Jul, 2017 06:58am

In ‘Muhabbat ka Bulava’ a young man falls in love with his friend’s sister and when his loved one’s very rich father Updated 14 May, 2017 10:18am