LAHORE: At the launch of her book “Feast-Food of the Islamic World”, London based Lebanese cookbook writer Anissa Helou said she had tried to portray the positive image of the Muslims “as they are shown terrorists in the world.”

She was having conversation with Aliya Naqvi during her book launch at the LLF 2019.

She said she saw in news that the Muslims were vilified after the Arab Spring and rise of ISIS in 2013 and she had taken up the project to show the positive image of the Muslim world. She said she travelled to many Muslim countries and found all these appealing.

She said she had found rice and bread central ingredients of most of the Muslim cuisine and also found sea food universal because these countries also had coasts. She said she was amazed after seeing hospitality of the Muslim world and Pakistan topped in hospitality.

She said she had travelled for three years to complete the book. “I did not find any aggressive denial while checking the food or making its pictures,” she said.

TELL HER EVERYTHING: A Kashmiri novelist and journalist, Mirza Waheed, at the launch of his book “Tell Her Everything” said he is not a method writer. The event was moderated by Zarrar Said.

The writer in his conversation said the novel was about a story of a doctor based in London, who was successful in his profession but in achieving it he left his family behind. The character is retired, in his 60s, and has a very comfortable life but has a realisation of the price he has paid in the pursuit of happiness.

He said the character wanted to tell his daughter everything through letters. The dilemma of the character is to face his daughter and tell her about his life, choices he made, his successes and failures.

Asked why he had not written about Kashmir despite being belonging to it, he said he liked writing about marginal characters. He said he would love to write about Kashmir in future.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2019