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SOME interesting trends were manifest when it comes to Pakistani Urdu literature published in 2018.
The oft-repeated lament about ever-decreasing reading habits in Pakistan was deafening, but we witnessed, at the same time, a rather tangible upturn in the number of books published and larger crowds being drawn to the book fairs and literary festivals organised during the year.
Though many of the new writers had to self-finance or self-publish their works, as always, some publishers published a large number of new titles on their own. Lahore’s ‘Aks’ publishing house, for instance, a comparatively new entrant in the market, claims to have published some 300 books during the last two years. Though many of them were reprints and many on religious topics, literature made a large part of these publications.
Of late, reprints have become all the rage as old maestros do sell well. Even some well-known publishers now regularly publish old titles, often not bothering to even get the books composed and a bare scanned image of an old edition would do. This also saves cost and solves a big problem: proofreading. It may be a tiny part of a book’s printing cost, but proofreading has become a very annoying problem for publishers as well as readers, since the younger lot is generally not able to correctly proofread the classics or Urdu stuff with typical vocabulary or quotations from Persian works. Prestigious publishers like Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu (Karachi) and Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab (Lahore) too have came up with new editions of some really good older Urdu works, that is, in addition to new titles. Reprints are all-important as they not only make older books easily available, but they also in a way preserve some very important titles, some of which may not be available at libraries.
Another trend is reprinting Indian Urdu books in Pakistan, legally or illegally. Publishers from Lahore have brought out a large number of Indian Urdu books, which is quite heartening as these books are mostly not available here. Prof Mirza Khalil Baig’s new book on Urdu linguistics Lisani masael-o-mabahis was reprinted, with due permission, from Lahore within a few months of its appearance in Delhi. This is a boon for students and scholars alike as original linguistic writings in Urdu are a rarity. Anees Ashfaq’s new novel Pari naz aur parinde has just been published in Lahore, although it was published from Lucknow only a couple of months ago. In fact, Indian Urdu books have a huge market in Pakistan and we have often witnessed great crowds around the stalls selling Indian Urdu books at the international book fairs at Karachi and Lahore, though they have been conspicuous by their absence at KIBF this year as well as the previous one.
Many of us must remember enjoying low-priced editions of some great Urdu books published by Syed Qasim Mahmood and some other publishers in the 1970s and 1980s. To beat the inflation, some publishers have started it again. While some major publishers are bent upon destroying their own business as well as reading habits in Pakistan by publishing books priced ridiculously high (a big publisher has printed a 96-page book on newsprint, priced at Rs 400), some others are genuinely interested in supplying the readers with good books at reasonable cost. One such bibliophile is Rashid Ashraf, an engineer from Karachi, who has dug out, edited and got published many old Urdu titles as low-priced editions. Named ‘Zinda kitaben’, (living books) the series, true to its name, has made many important old Urdu books come alive at an affordable price.
Another pleasing aspect of Urdu works published during 2018: a good number of well-translated works appeared, enriching Urdu all the more. Also, since 2017 was commemorated as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s bi-centennial, many works discussing his life and thoughts came up. We can expect same enthusiasm for Ghalib whose 150th death anniversary falls on Feb15, 2019.
Publication of a large number of literary Urdu magazines has proved to be more than just a passing fad. During the last few years many literary magazines were launched, though it was surprising as they generally do not sell and are mostly given out gratis. Some of the journals, such as Lauh (Rawalpindi), Ijra (Karachi), Qaumi Zaban (Karachi), Saheefa (Lahore) and Adabiyaat (Islamabad) published special issues that were received quite well in literary circles. And, on the other hand, research journals, mostly published by the Urdu departments of our universities, could not keep pace with the other journals and were published tardily, although many of research journals are financed by some government source while magazines named above have to survive on their own.
Online books, it seems, could not cause any major dent in the love of actual, physical and nice-smelling books. One reason is perhaps that new Urdu books are not available in electronic form, such as ‘Kindle Edition’. But it is note-worthy that https://www.rekhta.org/ebooks has now about 50,000 Urdu books and magazines, some of them quite new, free of any charge whatsoever. Some of the Urdu’s classical works and their rare, first editions too are easily accessible on this website. Students of Urdu research must be jubilant on this God-sent opportunity.
But the propaganda trying to make you believe that reading habits in Pakistan are on decline is generally proliferated by publishers themselves, the very same publishers who have been making big money by publishing books for the last 50 years or so. And they will continue to publish Urdu books and keep on whining that “nobody reads books these days”. They should simply sell their businesses, lock, stock and barrel, and start selling ‘chaat’ and ‘aaloo chhola’. But they won’t do that! As there is big money to be made in publishing, if you know how to!
Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2019
