REFERENCE Zubeida Mustafa’s article ‘New horizons’ (Sept 15). The writer hits the nail on the head with her observations about the lack of interest in literary translations in the context of Yashpal’s Jhutha Sach.

In my review of this novel in Dawn in 2010 I pointed out that it was arguably the best work about pre-partition Lahore, and that critics had praised it for a balanced portrayal which was as much a Hindu view as a Muslim view of partition. In spite of the Journal of Asian Studies naming it as ‘the most significant novel about the partition of India’ in any language, the book attracted little attention in Pakistan.

It seems that a Punjabi Urdu translation was published some time ago in Lahore. At the last Karachi Literature Festival, there were discussions but there was no mention of this work. Noted critic and translation scholar Harish Trivedi — no stranger to Pakistan — wrote that discussing literary representations of partition without Yashpal’s novel is “... a bit like talking about Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark.”

Rabab Naqvi

Normandy, Canada

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017