ISLAMABAD: Munir Badini’s main reference is novel-writing, and Balochi novels are an asset to Balochi literature, writer Qazi Javed said at an online event with Kamal-i-Fun winning intellectual and novelist Munir Ahmad Badini on Thursday.

The event was organised by the Pakistan Academy of Letters.

Mr Javed said Mr Badini has enriched Balochi literature with his work.

“His fiction, plays, novels and travelogues are his dimensions which he has mastered well. He covers topics such as life, justice, good and evil, freedom and human conscience,” he said.

Mr Badini said his life has been in the service of knowledge and literature.

“The Kamal-i-Fun award has inspired me to write more. I have been attached to books since childhood and when I started writing, I wrote what I felt. I looked at life closely and expressed it in my own words,” he said.

PAL Chairman Dr Yousuf Khushk said he was the dignity of Pakistani literature.

“[His] more than 100 novels and other books are proof of this. Hardly any writer of any language has written so many novels. He has also written short stories and dramas. His three collections of short stories have been published. Most of his novels cover the social and cultural situation of Baloch [people] and Balochistan. He does not consider literature to be philosophy, he talks about humanity along with philosophical things in his writings,” he said.

Writer Noor Khan Mohammad Hassani said that Mr Badini makes truthfulness a subject and discussion in his work.

Prof A.R. Dad said that Mr Badini’s novels cover Baloch people and this existential situation, tribal life and the national psyche.

In tribal life, the response to physical activity has been more important than the mind and is equipped with a superior moral force. In Mr Badini’s view, it is a great force and a source of life. This thinking is also seen in his writings. For him, politics is not the only manifestation of life, bus has many scales.

Prof Sharif Mir discussed one of Mr Badini’s books, which is in the shape of letters from a man to his son.

He said the book covers various philosophical topics, adding that Mr Badini’s writing has vivid imagery of Baloch tribes.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2020