A session entitled ‘The lost art of literary conversation’ was a discussion on Asif Furrukhi’s book comprising interviews of various writers and artists he did in 1984-85.

It was moderated by Masood Ashar, while the panelists included Intizar Husain and Kishwar Naheed.

Ashar introduced the bookHarf-i-man-o-tu-- as a comprehensive collection of interviews that try to explore the whole person being interviewed, without indulging in trivial things.

About the title of the session, he said before lamenting the perceived demise of art of literary conversation we should have included youth in the dialogue to know their views on the issue.

Furrukhi said the literary conversation was not dead yet and we should neither let it die. He said he learnt the “art” by listening to the literary discourses at sittings which used to be held among the literati like Kishwar Naheed and others.

He said while interviewing someone he had always been looking for the “real person” to explore his or her personality.

He said some of the interviews were memorable for being unique. In this connection he mentioned Ghulam Abbas, the master Urdu short story writer, who didn’t allow him ask even a single question throughout the interview.

Similarly, he said when he interviewed Faiz Ahmad Faiz, after he returned from his self-exile in Beirut, he became overawed by the poet and could ask many questions he had planned.

Kishwar Naheed said she always wanted the interviewers to read at least some of her works so that they could ask informed questions.

She said one good thing about Furrukhi’s interviews was that he always included social context of a talk in them.

Intizar Husain said literary interview was a relatively new genre inspired by the media as there had been no interviews of literary giants like Iqbal and Manto.

He said literary festivals had revived the art of literary dialogue to which Mr Furrukhi agreed.

Furrukhi said literary discourses should be different from the “shouting matches” we see on various TV channels. He said youth was reading a lot of literature and it was our responsibility to train them in literary discourse.

Published in Dawn February 23rd , 2015

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