#Pakistani Literature

[desigrrrl]

— Khalida Hussain, Enemy (translated by Haider Shahbaz)

[llovelymoonn]

raza ali hasan sorrows of the warrior class: "nocturnal tripping"

kofi

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Bapsi Sidhwa

Bapsi Sidhwa was born in 1938 in what is now Karachi, Pakistan. Sidhwa is best known for her 1988 novel, Cracking India (also known as Ice Candy Man), which drew on her experiences as a child in Lahore during the 1947 partition of India. The novel brought her international fame, and is regarded as an essential book on the Indian partition. Sidhwa, who emigrated to the US in 1983, has also written about American culture and the immigrant experience, such as in her novel An American Brat. She has won several awards, including the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest honor in the arts. Sidhwa's other honors include the David Higham Award and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award.

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"The Assignment" is available to read here

Image credit to Adwaith S., who made a illustrated adaptation on art style. It's excellent, if you liked the story, read this too afterwards.

[satin-carmin]

Oona was her mother's mother now, Oona sometimes felt, or maybe mother wasn't the right word for it, maybe daughter was fine, meaning more than she once thought they did, each having two sides to itself, a side of carrying and of being carried, each word in the end the same as the other, like a coin, differing only in the order of what face came up first on a toss.

Mohsin Hamid, The last white man

[pebblegalaxy]

Exploring Marginality and Love in Lahore: The House Of Clay And Water by Faiqa Mansab

Exploring Marginality and Love in Lahore: The House Of Clay And Water by Faiqa Mansab #Lahore #PakistaniLiterature @FaiqaMansab @PenguinIndia #Sufism #GenderIdentity #SocialJustice #ContemporaryFiction #AwardWinningNovel

The House Of Clay And Water by Faiqa Mansab is a debut novel by Faiqa Mansab, a Pakistani author who has an MFA in creative writing from Kingston University London. The novel is set in Lahore, the city of saints, and explores the lives of three characters who are marginalized and alienated by the society they live in. Nida is a wealthy but unhappy wife of a politician, who seeks solace in the…

[booksperience]

(via The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid)

While this conversation scene is fairly tranquil, the subject matter is not. Changez is subjected to constant “othering” during his stay in the US. Even prior to the World Trade Center attacks, he is never quite included in social circles, never quite one of the crowd... (Read full text on Booksperience site.)

[soracities]

Ankita Saxena, on her translation of Fahmida Riaz's poem "A Woman Is Laughing", pub. Modern Poetry in Translation [ID'd]

[soul-from-another-era]

[nabihahahahhahaha]

Tum thaq ke idhar aana

تم تھک کے ادار آنا۔

Apney dheele bazuon ke sath

اپنے دھیلے بازون کے ساتھ

Apne akhon k neeche gehrey khwab le kar

اپنی آنکھوں کے نیچے گہرےخواب لے کر

Sar k upar mandrati hui

دار کے او��ر مندرتی ہوئی

Adhuri si khwaish k sath

ادھوری خوایش کے ساتھ

Tum thaq ke idhar aana

تم تھک کے اذار آنا۔

Jab in buney hue rasto k

جب بنی ہوا راستہ کے

Dhagon me paer ulajhane lagey

ڈھگے الجھانے لگے

Jab ehsas ho k akele dhakka dene se zindagi

جب احساس ہو کے اکلے ڈھاکہ دینے سے زندگی

Aur agey nahi badhegi

اور اگے نہیں بڈھیگی

Tum thaq ke idhar aana

تم تھک کے ادار آنا۔

[mehreenkhan]

When Parveen Shakir said “ab to is raah se woh shakhs guzarta bhi nahin, ab kis umeed pe darvaze se jhanke koi” and when Faiz said “na jane kis liye umeed waar baitha hun, ek aisi raah pe jo teri rahguzar bhi nahin”

[maihonhassan]

This generation needs to understand what Nimra Ahmed has written:

"Kisi insaan ke paas itna ikhtiyar nahi hona chahiye ke wo sirf lafzon se apka zehni sukoon cheen sake."

[kafi-farigh-yusra]

گماں تم کو کہ رستہ کٹ رہا ہے

یقین مجھ کو کہ منزل کھو رہے ہو

حبیب جالب

Gumaa'n tum ko k rasta katt raha hai

Yaqee'n mujh ko k manzil kho rahe hou

Habeeb Jalib

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

"Swimming Lesson" is available to read here

[thedepressedkiddo]

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.

"The Fellowship of the Ring", J.R.R. Tolkien

[chthonic-empyrean]

إنها تعتقد أنه من الصعب أن أحبها وأنا أحبها كما لو انني أتنفس

She believes it's hard to love her and I love her like it's breathing.