KARACHI: Three Pakis­tani writers, Bapsi Sidhwa, Kamila Shamsie and Mohsin Hamid, have been included in BBC’s list of 100 novels that shaped the world.

Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man, Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist are featured in the ‘Crime & Conflict’ category while Shamsie’s Home Fire is included in the ‘Politics, Power & Protest’ category.

The works have been organised into themed categories, such as identity, adventure and love, sex and romance. Modern works such as Bridget Jones’s Diary and His Dark Materials made the cut along with classics like Pride & Prejudice and Middlemarch.

The panel, comprising leading British writers, curators and critics, was asked to choose 100 genre-busting novels that have had an impact on their lives. The English language novels, written over the last 300 years, range from children’s classics to popular page turners.

The panel of experts that curated the list included Radio 4 Front Row presenter and Times Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell, broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, authors Juno Dawson, Kit de Waal and Alexander McCall Smith, and Bradford Festival Literary Director Syima Aslam.

The list will form the basis of digital reading resources that will be made available on the BBC Arts website from January 2020.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2019