Q: What books are you currently reading?

A: I am reading Khuda Aur Mohabbat by Hashim Nadeem which is a love story of a foreign educated man and a girl from a religious family. The book has proved popular with the younger generation due to the simple presentation of a pure love story. This book has led me to believe that fiction remains popular in the country.

The author has also tried to portray the differences between different segments of society. The other novel that Mr Nadeem has written, Abdullah is also good but I have some reservations for instance, the writer has limited religion to graves and mausoleums in that book.

Q: What is the last book you particularly enjoyed reading?

A: The first time I read Bano Qudsia’s Raja Gidh was when I was a student of FSc. I read it again almost 20 years later after she died and I think I understood how deep the novel was this time. She was a great writer and has explained the problems in society very well.

In this book, the author has presented love and religion in a very balanced way and such that it is very easy for the reader to understand. She has written about what problems society will be facing in the near future and has presented a real picture of human nature. The storyline and the writing style are exceptional and the reader cannot put the book down till he has finished it.

Q: Are there any classics you could not finish reading?

A: There are many such books. I wanted to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and T.S. Eliot’s Waste Land which I started but could not finish. I also wanted to finish Robert Cook’s Coma, but I did not have the time to do so. There are many books that I have started to read but could not finish due to other engagements.

Q: Do you think there is a great Pakistani novel?

A: I think that would be Abdullah Hussein’s Udaas Naslein, which I think is one of the best fiction books. I also like the fiction works produced by Ahmed Javed, who was a gifted writer and produced some of the best short stories.

Naseer Ahmed Nasir has produced excellent poetry and is the only [Pakistani] poet who has written poems which are at par with international standards. He was not given any national award or a pride of performance, but his work is recognised in other countries and has been translated into Italian and Russian as well. He did not get recognition for his work [in Pakistan] because he was not a bureaucrat or from the elite class.

I also like reading autobiographies, for instance, Benazir Bhutto’s Daughter of the East. But we did not find the leader presented in the book, which if you read you will know that Benazir was a great leader and wanted to do [a lot] for her people.

Tehmina Durrani’s My Feudal Lord is also one of the best autobiographies in which she has portrayed life from a woman’s point of view.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2017