History through eight classical Urdu poets whose hearts remained ensconced in ‘Dilli’ even when they were forced to
Published 03 Feb, 2019 08:32am
Bollywood star Twinkle Khanna’s debut novel leaves much to be desired. While the story does have some quotable lines,
Published 03 Feb, 2019 08:32am
A real-life tale about reinventing coffee works as a window into Yemeni culture and the crisis that it’s caught
Published 03 Feb, 2019 08:32am
Pashaimaan Chahatein — Three Novels Aziz Aijaz Set in modern Pakistan, the titular tale tells of a cricket fan and the
Published 27 Jan, 2019 07:01am
Eminent poet and feminist Fahmida Riaz was gentle and warm in demeanour and elegantly understated in appearance, but...
Published 27 Jan, 2019 07:01am
A tour de force for those unfamiliar with the extreme sport, a book about scaling the peak called The Ogre is also about
Published 27 Jan, 2019 07:01am
Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s latest novel embarks on an allegorical journey to deal with issues of religious interpretation
Published 27 Jan, 2019 07:01am
A slim new volume of Urdu poetry stitches together a tapestry of poetic forms and speaks in a contemporary diction
Updated 28 Jan, 2019 10:37am
Allama Muhammad Iqbal and his times influenced the Urdu poetic tradition in a unique way, although the great poets ...
Published 20 Jan, 2019 08:58am
Reading the third book in a fantasy series first actually whets the appetite for the other parts
Published 20 Jan, 2019 08:58am
The West’s Worst Fear Ali Ahmed In this socio-political comment on the “presence of Muslims which agitates the minds
Published 20 Jan, 2019 08:58am
A debut novel traces the lives of four pampered Afghan sisters over four decades as well as that of a rebellious maid
Published 20 Jan, 2019 08:58am
Solitude, deep introspection and an existentialist sense of each passing moment set the accomplished author’s work
Published 20 Jan, 2019 08:58am
A new collection of Punjabi short stories provides an opening to explore how Partition has lived on as an active memory
Published 13 Jan, 2019 07:23am
A nuanced detailing of the tragedies and ordinariness of daily life on the Line of Control is also political commentary
Published 13 Jan, 2019 07:23am
In my last column I explored what happens to the five senses in a digital age via a reading of Mohsin Hamid’s Exit...
Published 13 Jan, 2019 07:23am
Reissued after 40 years, a memoir-like novel still seems fresh and emotive, but its brevity cannot do justice to its
Published 13 Jan, 2019 07:23am
M.A. Jinnah: The Outside View Muhammad Reza Kazimi The veteran historian, a retired professor of the University
Published 06 Jan, 2019 06:33am
There are oceans of writing in Urdu and Persian that haven’t been translated into other languages. A slew of...
Published 06 Jan, 2019 06:33am
Two books on the global superstar have recently been released, but only one of them gives you a real insight into the
Published 06 Jan, 2019 06:33am
Cecelia Ahern’s collection of short stories has a great deal of whimsy, but is often too predictable and heavy-handed
Published 06 Jan, 2019 06:33am
An English translation of a one-of-its-kind novel from Bhopal, once dubbed one of the ‘best untranslated novels’ in the
Published 06 Jan, 2019 06:33am
They were born five years apart. Both Leos, both poets, prose writers, radicals. I had barely stopped mourning one...
Published 30 Dec, 2018 07:09am
Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire is Ira Mukhoty’s startling insight into ...
Published 30 Dec, 2018 07:09am
An exciting new book delves into the lives of the real, flesh-and-blood women who were indispensable to the formation
Published 30 Dec, 2018 07:09am
Master novelist Haruki Murakami’s latest book, at its core, is about the melancholic nature of the creative process but
Published 30 Dec, 2018 07:09am
Are people who need people really the luckiest people in the world? Not a chance, according to Lane Moore, author of...
Published 23 Dec, 2018 07:22am
The struggles of a wife and mother of three when her husband decides to give up his corporate job and venture
Published 23 Dec, 2018 07:22am
Mandatory reading for practitioners of advertising and laypersons alike about an industry in turmoil
Published 23 Dec, 2018 07:22am
A look at why young Christians, despite being descendants of the soil, feel themselves alienated from Pakistani society
Published 23 Dec, 2018 07:22am
A majestic debut novel by a longtime apprentice of writing is a devastating portrayal of malignant male sexuality and
Published 16 Dec, 2018 07:24am
A short, fidgety old man sporting a neatly trimmed grey beard and usually wearing a lounge suit with a cheerful tie,...
Published 16 Dec, 2018 07:24am
An evocative novel about the underprivileged and marginalised in Sindh reads like a vivid screenplay
Published 16 Dec, 2018 07:24am
Khalid Hosseini deviates from his usual style of fictional prose to offer a heartfelt tribute to refugees in the form
Published 16 Dec, 2018 07:24am
Chemage: Learn + Earn + Return, 1943-2018
Sh. Ghulam Abbas Cyclewala
In his autobiography, the author traces not...
Published 09 Dec, 2018 07:06am
I love animals and I love books, but I tend to avoid novels about animals because I don’t enjoy crying. The world...
Published 09 Dec, 2018 07:06am
An allegorical treatise on the human desire for freedom and the Sufi path
Published 09 Dec, 2018 07:06am
A remarkable new novel from Michael Ondaatje asks important questions on the nature of war and victory, violence and
Published 09 Dec, 2018 07:06am
Altaf Fatima, who passed away last week, never received her due despite a formidable body of work. But she was much
Published 09 Dec, 2018 07:06am
If teaching literature is a challenge, then a greater challenge is teaching contemporary literature. Classics, by...
Published 02 Dec, 2018 07:04am
It’s a risky undertaking for a man to write in the female first-person, but one that the debut novelist pulls off with
Published 02 Dec, 2018 07:04am
While the 11th International Urdu Conference itself was a success, most speakers, as always, did spoil the fun by
Published 02 Dec, 2018 07:04am
The passing away last week of Fahmida Riaz, formidable poet, prose writer, translator, feminist and rights activist,
Published 02 Dec, 2018 07:04am
Some years ago I visited the English department of a university in Pakistan and, on entering the chairman’s ...
Updated 26 Nov, 2018 03:32pm
An anthology of budding writers captures the social and cultural diversity of Indian life
Published 25 Nov, 2018 07:03am
The Faiz International Festival that took place last weekend was not without issues, but its significance as a temporary
Published 25 Nov, 2018 07:03am
Khadija Mastoor’s classic novel Aangan receives a superb and nuanced new translation that is likely to garner even more
Published 25 Nov, 2018 07:03am
An attempt to explore existentialism, social pressures and the obsession with youth is let down by poor worldbuilding
Published 25 Nov, 2018 07:03am
As a writer who happens to be a woman, I’ve often been asked to comment on ‘women’s writing’ in interviews...
Published 18 Nov, 2018 06:57am
An authorised biography that shies away from controversial issues
Published 18 Nov, 2018 06:57am
The development of the pro-Hindu RSS and its influence on Indian politics
Published 18 Nov, 2018 06:57am
Despite her colonial prejudices, Charlotte Canning, wife of the governor-general during the Great ‘Mutiny’ of 1857,
Published 18 Nov, 2018 06:57am
A glimpse into the evolution of the BJP and right-wing politics in India
Published 11 Nov, 2018 08:38am
Crime fiction writer Megan Abbott’s latest thriller is a novel of astounding economy that is artfully crafted...
Published 11 Nov, 2018 08:38am
Let’s pause here and carve it on our cultural consciousness that poetry — especially Urdu...
Published 11 Nov, 2018 08:38am
Despite some shortcomings, a valuable addition to the existing scholarship on the country’s energy scenario
Published 11 Nov, 2018 08:38am
An adaptation of Jane Austen’s influential novel offers refreshing Muslim representation...
Published 11 Nov, 2018 08:38am
Incense and Echoes
Fazul Suleiman Kazi
This anthology of writings covers a vast spectrum of subjects, from ...
Published 11 Nov, 2018 07:05am
My short stint as a young man in Central and Eastern Europe during 1995 and 1996 was indeed rewarding — both...
Published 11 Nov, 2018 07:05am
A timely book adds to the growing literature being written from the Pakistani perspective on the Indus Waters Treaty
Published 11 Nov, 2018 07:05am
Clifton Bridge: Stories of Innocence and Experience from Pakistan Irshad AbdulKadir A collection of 10 short stories
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
How fair is this? On Halloween, we creep into Stephen King’s lair for terrors and scares, but here he is offering...
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
Former diplomat Saad Rashidul Khairi narrates his eventful life, but through it tells of his world and changing times
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
In his third novel, Mohammed Hanif challenges us to recognise the absurdity of what we have become while making us
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
An exciting book by an accomplished anthropologist lays bare the history of petroglyphs in Sindh through millennia
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
Shabbar Zaidi’s compilation of articles provides insight into the problems of Pakistan’s fiscal and forex policies
Published 04 Nov, 2018 07:06am
Short stories in Punjabi that attempt to articulate the aspirations and struggles of upwardly mobile groups as well as
Updated 16 Jan, 2020 11:27am
Oscar Wilde famously said that “the true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” But the...
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
The science of publishing is distinct from the art of writing, but it is equally important for aspiring writers to
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
A dystopian novel imagines a future where a South Asian city is segregated along communal and caste lines
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
Thoroughly researched history told with the intimacy of fiction captures an era of great upheaval in the subcontinent
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
Humans are limited in what they can experience and know by their ability to perceive through the five senses. What...
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
In his entertaining latest collection of short stories, Sir Jeffrey Archer demonstrates he is not simply a gifted writer
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
Despite its self-serving nature and the withholding of significant information, former intelligence chief Gen Asad
Published 28 Oct, 2018 07:09am
In a new novel, a young woman attempts to sleep away an entire year to get over her existential ennui
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
Reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s famous murder mystery, this whodunnit is surprising and gratifying
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
Yasmeen Hameed has published five collections of poems from 1988 to 2012 and edited anthologies of Pakistani Urdu...
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
A fresh and exciting approach to pen portraits attempts to include the milieu of the subjects, but only manages to
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
A new collection of 13 poignant short stories showcases the quietness with which Aamer Hussein portrays turmoil and
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
Milkman wins the Man Booker 2018 Northern Irish author Anna Burns has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for her novel
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
Muhammad Hasan Askari has always intrigued me as a formidable scholar, writer and critic. But his conceptualisation...
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
The naiveté of the modernisation project was a direct result of uncritical acceptance of the colonisers’
Published 21 Oct, 2018 08:34am
From Stasis to Mobility: Arab Muslim Feminists and Travelling Theory
Saiyma Aslam
The author looks at works by...
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
Usually, the crassness of politics and power agitates you and the refinement in art and literature soothes. But then...
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
A critique of liberalism from a conservative perspective argues that there is an unresolved contradiction within it
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
Nisar Muhammad Khan, who passed away on September 7, will be remembered for his singular contributions to Pakhtun
Updated 16 Oct, 2018 11:23am
A travelogue of great erudition, but also a heartfelt lament about the ecological degradation of the author’s native
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
At the age of 31, I read widely in about four languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish. By the age of 36 ...
Updated 15 Oct, 2018 02:24pm
In a collection of essays, Raza Rumi goes back into a shared history to understand what it means to be a Pakistani in
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
Bina Shah’s novel about a dystopian future paints a fascinating world, rich with detail and intricate in its imaginings
Published 14 Oct, 2018 07:11am
Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, our major poet, fiction writer and literary editor from the last century, once recalled meeting ...
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
Although called a novel, this book is based upon real experiences the author shared with his young son and is a
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
A collection of short stories that anyone can see themselves in, with Indian American culture humming in the background
Updated 04 Nov, 2018 04:42pm
If you’ve been online dating for more than a hot second, you’ve probably encountered a range of joys and ...
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
After a spell of five years, Fatima Bhutto is back with her second work of fiction, The Runaways. Set largely in...
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
Fatima Bhutto’s sophomore novel is a tender account of how identity, representation, alienation, faith and desire are
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
The poster of a recent film adaptation of Ismat Chughtai’s famed short story indicates that it may yet again be
Published 07 Oct, 2018 07:00am
In Pakistan, India or other developing countries, it is a common sight that old buildings of bricks and mortar are...
Published 30 Sep, 2018 06:28am
A book argues that seminaries need to be viewed as an educational challenge rather than be looked at through the prism
Published 30 Sep, 2018 06:28am
