LAHORE: Novelist Dur e Aziz Amna says she started writing her debut novel, American Fever, inspired by her own experiences she gained during her first visit to the US in 2008 as a part of an exchange programme, 10 years after her visit. When she visited a small town in the state of Oregan where she had to stay with a host family, she found everything strange and foreign.

She was speaking at the launch of her novel, American Fever, at the Indus Conclave, an event organised by a private group of colleges at the Alhamra Art Centre on Sunday.

To the question of the language used in her novel, especially the use of desi words, and how she navigated between two languages as well as cultures, Amna said when she was writing the novel it was not on her mind but after its publication, many readers in Pakistan felt connected to it which made quite a lot of sense. She said in her own family, languages would keep changing as her parents spoke a different language when they spoke to her and a different language (Punjabi) when they spoke among themselves.

Talking about the process of writing, Amna said she started with the place being conscious of the fact that she had to fictionalise it. She said she had completed the first draft pretty quickly in 2015, which was atrocious just like most first drafts and it was very different from what later came into print.

About the writers who were an inspiration for her, Amna referred to Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the first poets she had read in Urdu, by followed Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.

When asked about the role of literature in her life, Dur e Aziz Amna said she met a man from Multan here at the conference who told her that her novel felt like a friend, adding that one reaches out to a book as a friend before one would intellectualise it and the same was the case with her.

She told the audience that the title of the novel that she had given was “Consumed” but at the suggestion of her editor she changed it to The American Fever.

Mariam Tareen moderated the session.

PAKISTAN AT 100: Lawyer and columnist Asad Rahim Khan says there are three or four things that Pakistan has missed since 1947, adding that the first main thing was that the country could not introduce land reforms and transfer land from the big landholders to the landless. He stressed that the countries in Asia made progress after land reforms and Pakistan should at least follow them after 75 years of its existence.

Speaking at a session, Pakistan at 100, Asad said another failure of the country was its judicial system as it failed to implement the basic contract (between the individual and the state), adding that the problems lay with the language of the laws, which was foreign (English).

“If the whole judicial system is in English language then whether you are a petitioner or an accused or a prisoner, you can’t be a part of the law system until you understand the language (of law).”

Asad stressed population planning, saying that no reforms could save the country unless the state would take something to control population, more provinces and active local government and role of the media.

Journalist Sahar Habib Ghazi said the children who were 10 years old now might have to face the same problems in 2047.

“From the international lens, my own coverage in the last six weeks had been floods, not politics and any appointment (military) as the biggest news right now in Pakistan is of floods as 22m population of Pakistan needs urgent care.”

Ms Ghazi talked about climate change and the conditions of rivers like the Indus river, which would determine the future.

“How can we think about the future when we have such kind of problems in the present,” she asked.

Academic Umair Javed said most of Pakistan’s problems and their solutions were in politics whether we talked of the present or the future.

“Pakistan’s politics is currently completely broken and we can’t see any clear-cut pathway which is unprecedented.”

Mr Javed suggested to the military and political leadership to thinkover it.

He said in 1998, zero percent of people were relying on cell phones for source of information and it was 98pc right now.

“The masses have changed but politics is disconnected from them and it has not changed. I don’t think military or political leadership realise how much society has transformed. Static politics would be the biggest challenge of the country in the next 25 years,” Javed predicted.

The session was moderated by Saroop Ijaz.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2022