Still very much in vogue
A common misconception in Pakistan is that books do not sell here because people do not read. Publishers blame the internet, smartphones, and numerous TV channels for “dying reading habits”. Interestingly, none of the publishers complaining of slack sales and readers’ apathy have gone out of business. More and more new titles are published in Urdu every year and the year 2016 was no different. A large number of books by both old and new writers appeared. Another trend that has picked up in the last few years is reprinting of classics and old-time favourites. Publishing the collected works of popular Urdu poets and prose writers is a trend that got steam some three decades ago in Lahore and now every year we see bulky volumes of collected works being churned out.
Some of the old maestros, like Allama Muhammad Iqbal and Mirza Ghalib, sell like proverbial hot cakes. Every year different publishers print different editions of Iqbal’s poetry and they have to reprint them every few years. For instance, the National Book Foundation (NBF) has published several editions of Iqbal’s poetry — one is printed on art paper, dripping with colours and has almost sold out. Various low-priced editions of Iqbal’s poetry published by the NBF with large print orders simply flew off the shelves and now they are being reprinted (I was much amused to read the other day that Iqbal’s poetry was going out of fashion, good joke!). So books do sell in Pakistan, people do buy and read them. The recent Karachi International Book Fair is proof. So do not believe publishers, who published new titles during the year 2016 yet kept on whining as usual.
What follows is not at all a list of the best books of 2016; rather, it is an overview of what was published and read during the year and out of hundreds of new titles only a handful can be mentioned here.
There are some sceptics that believe that Urdu literature is dying, but the proliferation of new titles proves quite the contrary
Poetry: When Kishwar Naheed publishes a new collection of her poetry, it is news indeed. Abad Kharaba, a slim volume carrying the hallmark that Naheed is known for, was published by Sang-e-Meel and includes nazms [poems] and ghazals. Amjad Islam Amjad’s collected poetical works were published in two volumes, Hum Uss ke Hain is a collection of ghazals and Mere bhi Hain Kuchh Khwaab has poems. Naheed Qasmi collected her father Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi’s selected poems in Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi ki Muntakhab Nazmein. Arshad Mahmood Nashad published Kitab Nama, a masnavi appreciating books and expressing love for the written word. Tanzeem-ul-Firdous’s first collection of poetry, Manzar Badalna Chahiyye, was published, though she has been writing poetry for quite long. Selections from Urdu poetry published by Oxford University Press in 2016 included those of Shibli Nomani (compiled by Tanzeem-ul-Firdous), Asghar Gondvi (compiled by Abdul Aziz Sahir), Fani Badayuni (compiled by Ziaul Hasan), Munir Niazi (compiled by Fatema Hasan) and Ada Jafri (compiled by Fatema Hasan).
Fiction: Muhammad Ilyas’s Galiyon aur Bazaron Mein, a collection of short stories, has some very short stories. Though these stories satirise our social and political scene, many lack the subtlety found in Ilyas’s previous works. Najmul Hasan Rizvi ke Behtreen Afsane is a selection of short stories chosen by Ambreen Haseeb Ambar. Mubeen Mirza, critic, poet, and short story writer, published another collection of his short stories, titled Zameenein aur Zamaney. Ghulam Abbas’s novella Gondni wala Takiya was reprinted. Shahid Siddiqui’s novel Aadhe Adhoore Khwaab is another reprint that appeared in 2016. This shows that there is a market for good literary works and people do read. Saadat Hasan Manto’s works, titled Poora Manto, are being compiled and edited in 10 volumes by Shamsul Haq Usmani. The third volume was just published by OUP, as was a selection of Hasan Askari’s short stories, edited by Asif Farrukhi.