KARACHI: The Arts Council of Pakistan, Karachi, has organised a session with internationally renowned short story writer and novelist Aamer Hussein in connection with his latest book Restless – Instead of an Autobiography.

The programme began with theatre artist Shama Askari’s reading an excerpt from the book. She did a good job. She made sure that every word was enunciated and pronounced with clarity, and correct stresses and pauses.

English language poetess Fatima Ijaz was the moderator for the event. Her first question to the author was about the title of the book, Restless. Mr Hussein said in 2010 he wrote a piece for the Pakistan issue of Granta magazine. He was busy at the time and had no intention of writing it, but the editors of the magazine convinced him to do so. He wrote about writing in England. It was the first piece that he penned purely in the form of a memoir. “Restless is a reference to a poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz. I haven’t reread it recently. I read it when I was between 15 and 16. My publisher and I decided on the title without thinking about it very much. We just started to call it Restless. At one point it was to be called They Shall Come Home. It [restless] just seemed to be right… It does seem to carry forward a lot of the movement of my life. I try to connect things through fictionalised aspects of my life, through moments of my public life, my private life. There are stories about illness, convalescence and the pandemic. [So] it’s physical restlessness as well as spiritual or a longing to go home to a place that’s always far away.”

When Ms Ijaz asked whether the pieces in the book should be read as independent works or they stand by one another, the writer replied his publisher and he worked very closely on the sequence of the stories. The first part of the book about his life is in chronological order. “It begins when I’m 15. It jumps when I’m 20 studying Urdu which I didn’t know perfectly until then as a written language. It moves forward to my late 50s when I visit Palestine – one of the most momentous journeys of my life. And then it moves to memoir, which is probably my favourite part of the book, of my mentor Han Suyin [Chinese-born author]. It goes back to the time when I was 32. And then covers my life till I was about 60, which is some years after she [Suyin] died, and when I realised what I had lost in friendship which for some sad reason ended about five years before she passed away. She couldn’t remember me.”

Talking about the origin of his stories, Mr Hussein said, “Everything I see and hear. Some people believe we write because we read, and everything we write is inspired by the writers who we most admire. Stylistically that might be true, but in the end what we write has to partake of our sensibility. Anything that hurts you, offends you, makes you laugh, makes you smile, makes you weep… goes into the story.”

After the conversation, the floor was opened for a question-answer session.

Earlier, Dr Fatema Hassan introduced the speakers to the guests.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2021