From the way panelists blocked Madeline Clements’s earnest efforts to moderate the session ‘The Pakistani Novel in English: International Representation, Local Reception,’ one would think that the “Pakistani novel” were a figment of our collective imagination. It was excruciating to watch Clements (duly well-prepared, notebook in hand) try her level best to coax something out of the four speakers on stage — H.M. Naqvi, Shandana Minhas, Bina Shah and Uzma Aslam Khan. One was not expecting everyone to agree with each other, but instead of wasting the audiences’ time, the authors should have excused themselves beforehand if they did not find the topic appropriate.

As it was, Clements attempted for a full hour to direct the discussion, only to hear an irate Naqvi dismiss the panel as “somewhat misconceived.” He was of the opinion that, unlike Indians, “we haven’t taken ownership of English.”

That seemed a strange assessment given that every major city has a profusion of people offering English classes, promising high scores in the TOEFL, IELTS, and so on. Most public universities, and nearly all private institutions, retain English as the medium of instruction. Parents participate in insidious language-shaming, insisting that their children adopt English. Our babus and diplomats have better command over English than their mother tongue. Even the Pakistan Army quotes Shakespeare to whitewash its debacles! But the fact of the matter is: a majority of Pakistanis neither speak nor understand English, so Clements was not at all in the wrong to suggest that Pakistani novels are “directed to an audience abroad.” Most English-language Pakistani novels are written by those who have either a) lived in, b) studied in, or c) been exposed to the West.

It was also a point of irritation for the panelists that readers read Pakistani writers for insight into Pakistan; that outsiders look, as Naqvi said, “for anthropological value” in Pakistani novels. But with all that has been happening in our region since 9/11 and the shenanigans of our state, is it any wonder that the world is intrigued by Pakistani literature? Moreover, isn’t that why we turn to fiction in the first place, to transport ourselves into other worlds?

“We never hear of the ‘New Zealand’ or the ‘Scandinavian’ novel,” quipped Shandana Minhas. However, when Eleanor Catton recently won the Booker prize, she was hailed as New Zealand’s own. Likewise, Stieg Larsson is very much known as a Scandinavian writer. Readers have always looked to the literature of other places for insight into those cultures.

Yet Minhas also managed to reach the heart of the matter: “There are practical implications of the lack of a reading culture … we don’t have an understanding of the nuances of this craft.” The locust-like arrival of private education, the deterioration of public universities, and a government with misplaced priorities — all of these factors have contributed to sorry literacy rates. At the same time, as Clements pointed out, “Pakistani readers have strong opinions about how Pakistan is or is not represented.” Perhaps it is natural in a country that was not so long ago dubbed “the most dangerous nation in the world” for its citizens to be anxious, protective of its image abroad.