From the earliest oral storytelling traditions to the E-books of today, people have never tired of sharing stories. The invention of paper, followed by the printing press, ensured stories travelled across cultures and time, with many translated into different languages to benefit readers across the world. Literature allows the reader to step into another’s shoes, to better understand people and events, and often resonates with the reader’s own experiences.

Stories are adapted for children, turned into theatre and film, or even expressed through dance or music. Literature can take many forms, including poetry, novels, drama, puppetry, comic books and graphic novels. The literature of war has become a genre in itself.

In early European literature, war was the dominant, if not exclusive, theme in literature. Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey reflect the Greek culture of war, as did Virgil’s The Aeneid in Roman culture. Mediaeval European society continued this tradition, where masculine valour was measured by prowess in war. The War Poets of WWI expressed, perhaps for the first time, the fear and horror of soldiers at war faced with the brutality expected of them on the battlefield.

WWII redressed this imbalance, returning to war as heroism, especially though the new medium of cinema. However, war became less glorious in subsequent decades, in particular in Vietnam and the ultimate ignominy of the war in Afghanistan, in which tribals with no air force or army ousted a joint army of 51 nations, despite their advanced war technology.

From Homer to Mahmoud Darwish, war has shaped literature, and literature has shaped our understanding of war. The narratives of war, however, have evolved over the centuries

No literature has emerged of heroic battles from these wars other than accounts of the emotional toll on soldiers. More literature has been written by the ‘other side’, such as Khalid Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and the lesser known A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar.

One of the important incentives for war is a belief in being on the right side of morality. Today, politicians, supported by elements of the media under their control, have to work hard to present moral justifications for war. It does not emerge naturally from within society. Growing social media and independent reporting constantly question who holds the moral high ground. In many ways, war journalism has replaced war literature.

Wars are not always played out on a battlefield. Saadat Hasan Manto’s short stories, Quratulain Haider’s Aag Ka Darya and Abdullah Hussain’s Udaas Naslain express the impact of the struggle for freedom and the Partition on the lives of ordinary people. Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib spoke for people under the yoke of political tyranny.

Writing fiction is a complex process, where artistic freedom and the rules of literary structure are harnessed to make the reader arrive at underlying truths hinted at in the story or poem. Literary fiction is actually the art of literary diction, of which Shakespeare is one of the finest examples. He used metaphor and symbolism more than narration of events to evoke an emotional response in his audience. His plays with the backdrop of war, such as Macbeth or Julius Caesar, reveal the human frailty rather than the heroism of his warriors.

It is widely understood that literature shapes or reinforces cultural norms and values. One could propose that the popularity of George Orwell’s novel 1984, which grew out of his dislike of Stalin’s communism, contributed to continuing anti-Russian politics in the West. War literature and historical accounts of wars form an integral part of a school or college syllabus, reinforcing the importance of nationalism and the inevitable response to defending it by waging war.

The two World Wars are kept alive by marking Armistice Day of 1918 and D-Day of 1944 at ceremonies across Europe. What if war was to be left out of history and literature, and replaced with acts of humanity, the study of nature and inventions that improve the lives of people? Would that make future generations work positively for a collective humanity?

It is a poet, Mahmoud Darwish, rather than the political leader, Yasser Arafat, who is considered the ‘voice of the Palestinian people.’ As a 12-year-old, he wrote a poem about Arabs forced to celebrate Israel’s independence day. The next day, the military governor called him to his office to censure him. The incident made him realise the power of poetry: “The strong and mighty state of Israel gets upset by a poem I wrote!”

He came to believe poetry ‘changes nothing’ but reminds people to feel, especially when curfews, displacement and bombardments become the norm. His poems have a disarming simplicity that goes to the core of Palestinian resistance:

“And they question him why do you sing?
He answers to them as they seize him
Because I sing
And they searched him
In his breast only his heart
In his heart only his people
In his voice only his sorrow.”

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist.
She may be reached at durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 30th, 2025