Multidisciplinary artist and storyteller Osman Yousefzada sat with Bloomsbury Publishing executive publisher Alexandra Pringle to discuss his book at a session titled “The Go-Between – A coming-of-age memoir” on the second day of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) 2022 here at Alhamra on Saturday.

Introducing the book titled “The Go-Between: A Portrait of Growing Up Between Different Worlds”, moderator Ms Pringle said the memoir of Yousefzada dealt with his boyhood years in the United Kingdom. Born [to the migrant parents] and bred in Birmingham, she said, Yousefzada had written about working class women. She said the social milieu presented by the writer in Birmingham of 1980’s was almost similar to that portrayed by Charles Dickens in his novels around a century ago.

Mr Yousefzada said: “My parents belong to Swabi (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and I am inspired by my mother who was a seamstress.” He said his father was sort of a control ‘freak’. He said he had tried to narrate the conditions of working class women in a Birmingham locality which is a sort of ‘red light area’ where courtesans had their set-up.

Yousefzada said having a Muslim identity had been an issue in Birmingham. Speaking of mosques, he said the clerics had declared television ‘boxes of evil.’ He also spoke of racism and similarities in Birmingham neighbourhood and Swabi.

SAVAGE BEAUTY: Celebrated contemporary artist Imran Qureshi conversed with painter and art educationist Salima Hashmi on his corpus of miniature painting and installations at an #LLF-2022 session titled “Savage Beauty.”

A number of slides displaying Qureshi’s miniature work were shown to the audience.

Mr Qureshi shared with the audience fond memories of his admission to the National College of Arts in 1990 when he came from Hyderabad and studied landscape and miniature painting. The artist explained his body of works to the audience. Some of the subjects he laid his hands on included Mughal courts, violence, contemporary political conditions [post-9/11] and global warming.

Qureshi explained some of his art pieces depicting the lynching of two brothers in Sialkot by an unruly mob in 2010 and when Pakistan detonated its nuclear devices 1998.

Speaking about Imran Qureshi’s works, former NCA principal Salima Hashmi said he is an observer, communicator and a commenter. “There is an element of amusement and humour in his pieces.”

About his portrayal of violence, she said the depiction showed an artist’s role as a healer.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2022

Opinion

Editorial

Trump 2.0
Updated 07 Nov, 2024

Trump 2.0

It remains to be seen how his promises to bring ‘peace’ to Middle East reconcile with his blatantly pro-Israel bias.
Fait accompli
07 Nov, 2024

Fait accompli

A SLEW of secretively conceived and hastily enacted legislation has achieved its intended result: the powers of the...
IPP contracts
07 Nov, 2024

IPP contracts

THE government expects the ongoing ‘negotiations’ with power producers aimed at revising the terms of sovereign...
Rushed legislation
Updated 06 Nov, 2024

Rushed legislation

For all its stress on "supremacy of parliament", the ruling coalition has wasted no opportunity to reiterate where its allegiances truly lie.
Jail reform policy
06 Nov, 2024

Jail reform policy

THE state is making a fresh attempt to improve conditions in Pakistan’s penitentiaries by developing a national...
BISP overhaul
06 Nov, 2024

BISP overhaul

IT has emerged that the spouses of over 28,500 Sindh government employees have been illicitly benefiting from BISP....