PESHAWAR: Despite deep slump in the books market, price hike and thin readership trend, different organisations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Afghanistan and UAE brought out Pashto books on varieties of literary topics during the outgoing year.

Poets, writers and scholars also remained active on social media, sharing poetic and prose pieces in Pashto. Literary seminars, conferences, book fairs, poetry sessions, study circles and debates were also held throughout the year 2018.

The woman poets and writers also published their books in a large number as compared to the previous years.

Poets and writers also remain active on social media

A wide range of Pashto, Urdu and Hindko titles came out on research, criticism, fiction, music, history, climate change, culture, environment, politics, heritage, folklore, prose and poetry under the auspices of Pashto literary bodies in Peshawar, Mardan, Quetta, Karachi, Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar and United Arab Emirates.

Although no exact figure of the titles published till filing of this report was available, yet the local publishers and booksellers surmised that number of the books this year surpassed 2017 despite price hike and the ever going downward trend of readership as the price of the printed paper shot up from 15 to 20 per cent.

Octogenarian Anwar Khan Lala, a bookseller at the lone Pashto bookstore in the University of Peshawar, said that for the first time in history, he received demand of Pashto titles on history, culture and literature from Pakhtun readers based in the US, UK, Germany and Gulf States.

“Owing to our online page, Pashto books found readers abroad and we had to ship titles on Pashto classic and modern poetry, heritage, history and culture,” he said.

The outgoing year witnessed two big literary surprises among the Pakhtun researchers and literary critics. One was publication of Khushal Khan Khattak’s handwritten manuscript and the other was coming out of the manuscript of the first ever available Pashto book ‘Khairul Bayan’ both being researched and published in Kabul.

The development has already triggered a literary debate among research scholars and literary critics across the Durand Line about the authenticity and significance of those publications.

Ibrahim Roman, a noted writer, brought out Pashto translation ‘Shawakhoon’ (Anguish) of 12 representative short stories of Urdu classics including Syed Sajjad Haider Yaldram, Krishan Chander, Munshi Premchand, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Ahmad Ali, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Asmat Chughtai, Quratulain Haider, Qudratullah Shahab, Mumtaz Mufti and Ashfaq Ahmad.

He told this scribe that Pashto language was still lagged behind in substantive work on symbolism, abstractionism and Sufism.

Samiuddin Arman, a young scholar, said that his new title ‘Tanqeeq’ a combination of research and criticism would help the students of Pashto literature to critically analyse any research contents so that it could pave way for critical thinking. He said that he coined the term for the young researchers and critics to encourage new and creative ideas.

Ayazullah Tarakzai, a local publisher, told this scribe that Pashto titles on literary criticism, fiction and research registered a significant market selling trend. He said that Pashto and Urdu books on comparative studies regarding various classic writers also saw light of the day. He said that a number of Pashto travelogues and short stories collections were brought out and a few even ran out of the stock while some got second editions.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2018