KARACHI: The launch of Blue Glass: Stories and Translation by Shahbano Alvi at the book publisher Liberty Books’ flagship shop on Friday turned out to be an interesting discussion between the author and writer and critic Muneeza Shamsie about solitude, the world being observed by seemingly lifeless things such as candlesticks, pepper shakers and translations, etc.
Shahbano Alvi is herself a publisher with her publishing house, Ushba Publishing International, completing 25 years this year. But her own books are published by other publishing houses. Blue Glass is a collection of stories about life, nature and time, which also includes four translated works of Zaheda Hina, which she entrusted to the author herself.
“Zaheda is a friend. She is also a fantastic writer. Some 10 years ago when I had asked her if her stories had been translated into English, she said no and gave me four or five stories to translate,” Shahbano said. “After seeing my translations, critic and short story writer Aamer Hussein said that he really liked my translations, which gave me confidence. These are the same translations,” she added.
The book also includes a story, Mosaic: Tesserae of Life, which has within itself five shorter stories about five characters that form a mosaic of five separate stories. “They are all different stories but they seem to unite in a way,” Shahbano explained.
Another story in the book is Bangalore Town, which is about the garbage heaps all over town, one of which happened to be near her place some years ago. “I often saw little boys scavenging there. One day, I saw a boy finding something to eat there, which he also shared with a hungry stray dog,” said Shahbano. “Incidents like these stay with me and I made it into a story. In poverty, people are like kindred spirits, they carry compassion for each other,” she pointed out.
Yet another story focuses on lifeless things. When Muneeza Shamsie inquired from the author about a blue glass pepper shaker, Shahbano told her that it was the one left after its pairing salt shaker broke. “I had put it away after the salt shaker broke and one day a friend asked me what happened to the pair. I told her that the salt shaker broke a little before my husband passed away. And then she told me not to let the remaining pepper shaker break,” she said.
The book also follows a theme of solitude as noticed by the moderator. “Solitude is sometimes important for a person’s sanity,” Shahbano concluded.
Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2026
