Asif Farrukhi left us. When I heard the news from my younger sister, it seemed to me that the whole realm of being had come to a grinding halt...
Published 14 Jun, 2020 06:16am
Many subcultures use secret languages to create cohesion within the community and to keep themselves safe from outsiders...
Published 14 Jun, 2020 06:16am
S.M. Shahid’s pen sketches provide insight into individuals who have enriched the non-political, non-religious, softer...
Published 14 Jun, 2020 06:16am
Edward Snowden’s autobiography fills the gap in the narrative about him, and his disclosures about government digital...
Published 14 Jun, 2020 06:16am
Jameel Akhtar’s book on the towering literary icon Qurratulain Hyder showcases years of diligent research...
Published 07 Jun, 2020 06:55am
A desi romance novel almost manages to pull off a genre most South Asian writers do not venture into...
Published 07 Jun, 2020 06:55am
Asif Farrukhi, who passed away on June 1, was more than just a fiction writer, an essayist, a critic, a translator or a literary festival organiser. He was truly a giant of global literature...
Published 07 Jun, 2020 06:55am
“All writers live in a dolphin-like progression, above and below the waterline, of isolation and intense...
Updated 08 Jun, 2020 03:59pm
Tourism is one of the industries hit hardest by this coronavirus pandemic. Experts predict that foreign travel may...
Published 31 May, 2020 01:38pm
Former BBC and FT correspondent Kim Ghattas traces the current problems of the Middle East to three key events from 1979...
Published 31 May, 2020 01:38pm
Afzal Ahmed Syed has done great service to our literary heritage by excavating and translating vintage couplets from often unfairly dismissed poets...
Published 31 May, 2020 01:38pm
Aamer Hussein’s first book of Urdu stories sustains his lifelong engagement of writing about the life of the other with aesthetic, narrative and ethical care...
Published 31 May, 2020 01:38pm
Prof Navid Shahzad has recently recalled in one of her writings what George Orwell said soon after the Second World...
Published 24 May, 2020 05:26am
An important contribution to Pakistan’s cultural history, a new book is more than a simple documentation of historic architecture
Published 24 May, 2020 05:26am
A sociologist looks at the common problems faced by women in Pakistani society and shines a light...
Published 24 May, 2020 05:26am
An award-winning author writes an accessible and entertaining book, chock-full of facts and historical...
Published 24 May, 2020 05:26am
Voyager: A Journey to Self and Love
Khurram Shahzad
This debut collection of poetry is divided into two sections,...
Published 17 May, 2020 04:55am
In this grim atmosphere of a worldwide pandemic and the numbing effect of lockdowns, reading Mirza Asadullah Khan...
Updated 19 May, 2020 03:13pm
A book looks at the plight of Quetta’s Hazara community through untold and seemingly incomplete stories
Published 17 May, 2020 04:55am
A Ponzi scheme and the existential anxieties of rudderless, privileged North Americans, propel...
Published 17 May, 2020 04:55am
Nadeem F. Paracha attempts to trace the evolution of Sufism in Pakistan and how its appeal has often been used by...
Published 17 May, 2020 04:55am
A well-respected historian presents brief historical stories told in lucid prose that counter generalisations and...
Published 10 May, 2020 06:43am
The new novel by S.K. Tremayne is another well-crafted and hugely enjoyable suspense thriller, which pulls you...
Published 10 May, 2020 06:43am
Maham Javaid, whose short story ‘The Tallest Woman’ won the first Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize for Women...
Published 10 May, 2020 06:43am
News of death, especially if unrelated to the dreaded coronavirus, seems all the more dismal...
Published 10 May, 2020 06:43am
William Dalrymple’s curated book accompanying the first large exhibition of ‘Company Painting’ reveals the obscured...
Published 10 May, 2020 06:43am
The eminence claimed for Lampedusa is based on referring to his novel as that by a Sicilian writing about Sicily.
Updated 03 May, 2020 12:40pm
A searing and unapologetic work challenges accepted social ‘truths’ of an increasingly polarised West and offers...
Published 03 May, 2020 07:08am
A Pakistani novella that bills itself as interactive has problems with characterisations, but is an easy enough...
Published 03 May, 2020 07:08am
A research-based treatise on how rural Pakistanis in Sargodha district vote turns many assumptions on their heads...
Published 03 May, 2020 07:08am
Everywhere in the world, people with a literary bent of mind sometimes name their children after poets or writers....
Updated 26 Apr, 2020 11:42am
Ronan Farrow vividly and meticulously details how the film producer and convicted serial rapist evaded...
Published 26 Apr, 2020 06:06am
A new novel imagines a world where one man is able to go back in time to alter history and allow the Ottoman Empire...
Published 26 Apr, 2020 06:06am
S.M. Zafar’s look at Pakistan’s history, despite some biases and low production values, is a mine of information...
Published 26 Apr, 2020 06:06am
Launched in 2019, the Zeenat Haroon Rashid (ZHR) Writing Prize for Women is now receiving non-fiction submissions ...
Published 19 Apr, 2020 06:20am
Have you ever wondered if your smartphone can think and feel by itself? With all its face-recognition technology and...
Published 19 Apr, 2020 06:20am
Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that…
Updated 19 Apr, 2020 01:06pm
A first-of-its-kind book in Urdu tracing the history and evolution of documentaries is particularly notable for its...
Published 19 Apr, 2020 06:20am
An English translation of Mirza Athar Baig’s surreal 2014 Urdu novel stays true to its source, bridging the gap betwe...
Published 19 Apr, 2020 06:20am
Lahore-born author Anita Mir’s novel The Inside City has been longlisted for this year’s RSL Ondaatje Prize,...
Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am
There’s a parable somewhere which says that each of us has nine — or is it 12? — teachers who guide us to our goa...
Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am
Easy to read and full of wisdom, a book questions some accepted beliefs about raising children...
Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am
Stephen Chbosky re-enters the literary scene after 20 years with a bone-rattling, horror novel...
Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am
After three decades of stop-start reforms, both academics and practitioners need a better understanding of exactly...
Published 12 Apr, 2020 07:06am
Noak Jhoak: Tanz-o-Mazah, Haqqee Ke Purkaar Aur Bagh-o-Bahar Qalam Se
Shanul Haq Haqqee
This collection of ...
Published 05 Apr, 2020 06:27am
The world has swung around and rearranged itself so much since I wrote my last Dawn column that I couldn’t ...
Published 05 Apr, 2020 06:27am
Empathetic and provocative, a compelling book for anyone who wants to understand Iran as it exists today...
Published 05 Apr, 2020 06:27am
A hefty tome that surveys literature on the megalopolis of Karachi could have done with more rigour and better fact...
Published 05 Apr, 2020 06:27am
Ian McEwan puts his own spin to Brexit and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
in this disjointed novella...
Published 05 Apr, 2020 06:27am
A novel that seems like fluffy chick-lit about online dating has multiple layers...
Published 29 Mar, 2020 07:36am
An anthology of essays provides insight into the labyrinth of India’s military and civilian nuclear programmes...
Published 29 Mar, 2020 07:36am
Romesh Gunesekera, the celebrated Anglophone writer of Sri Lankan origin, is the recipient of several awards...
Published 29 Mar, 2020 07:36am
The latest novel by the multiple award-winning Romesh Gunesekra is a haunting and poetic foray into a newly indepe...
Published 29 Mar, 2020 07:36am
A recent action-filled and gripping novel revolving around Iraq’s biological weapons
is a stark reminder of the...
Published 22 Mar, 2020 06:49am
A new anthology of essays questions whether communities or individuals historically subject...
Published 22 Mar, 2020 06:49am
Alam’s canvas is both vast and complex. What distinguishes his storytelling is the simultaneity of conscious and...
Published 22 Mar, 2020 06:49am
Pakistan is in dire need of engaging in a dialogue with the world, but the means to do so is neither supported nor...
Published 22 Mar, 2020 06:49am
Karen Armstrong’s latest book is a grand tour of world religions, that develops her thesis that scripture is a way to
Published 15 Mar, 2020 08:49am
A debut novel presenting itself as chick-lit is let down by the author’s inability to find her voice and her desire to
Published 15 Mar, 2020 08:45am
A new book argues that well-designed and implemented public policies can indeed have significant impacts in reducing
Published 15 Mar, 2020 08:40am
Stopping short of being declared a pandemic on a global scale by watchdog bodies, the dreaded coronavirus has...
Published 15 Mar, 2020 08:35am
An exploration of the ancient rock art found in the Kirthar Mountains of Sindh and Balochistan, comprising pictures as
Published 15 Mar, 2020 08:34am
Hit by fears of the coronavirus, the Karachi Literature Festival nevertheless managed to pull off what is still the
Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:35am
Despite some flaws, a debut novel charmingly depicts village life and growing up within it as a free spirit
Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:32am
A travelogue from the Western Sahara, now translated into English, tells of a Taiwanese woman longing to escape her
Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:26am
Two unpublished poems from the writer…
Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:19am
An evaluation of covert deceptions allegedly perpetrated by India from a decidedly Pakistani state perspective. Many of
Published 08 Mar, 2020 08:18am
Hindus have been living in Balochistan since time immemorial, and ruled some parts of it too, before...
Published 01 Mar, 2020 07:05am
A superb English translation of Ismat Chughtai’s take on India’s Emergency in 1975, which is as prescient now...
Published 01 Mar, 2020 07:05am
Despite being forced to close early on all three days and the organisers’ efforts to keep the agenda apolitical...
Published 01 Mar, 2020 07:05am
Dr Pirzada Qasim’s third collection of poetry has arrived after a span of many years.
And the wait has been worth...
Published 01 Mar, 2020 07:05am
I am presently engrossed in William Dalrymple’s dazzling work The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India...
Published 23 Feb, 2020 07:06am
A debut novel spins a tight story that explores multiple facets of humanity or, occasionally, the lack of it...
Published 23 Feb, 2020 07:06am
What has been your takeaway from writing and getting In the Company of Strangers published?
A lot of aspiring...
Published 23 Feb, 2020 07:06am
Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains why wealth creation is different from wealth extraction and why inequality...
Published 23 Feb, 2020 07:06am
A compendium of prose fiction and poetic responses to the most barbaric colonial-era massacre in the Subcontinent...
Published 23 Feb, 2020 07:06am
An Urdu translation by Mahmood Alam Siddiqui of Saleena Karim’s 2010 book, Secular Jinnah and Pakistan:
Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am
Written in a clear style and modern idiom, these poems display concerns of one of the most important contemp...
Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am
Malcolm Gladwell takes on what the research tells us about our misperceptions about people’s motivations...
Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am
An English translation of an Arabic novel, which won the Man Booker International Prize, is a complex story of...
Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am
Nisar Aziz Butt, who passed away on February 7, was a highly erudite and multi-faceted writer in whose mind time...
Published 16 Feb, 2020 07:09am
Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s latest is a 13th century detective story that explores the nature of power and myth in a...
Published 09 Feb, 2020 06:58am
Faiz spoke about prison, chain, lock, fire and scheming political leaders in his very first collection of pre-Pakistan..
Published 09 Feb, 2020 06:58am
A free-flowing Punjabi memoir that presents us with a micro-historical look into the varied experiences of...
Published 09 Feb, 2020 06:58am
The turnout at this year’s festival was significantly lower than last year’s inaugural event, but its significance...
Updated 09 Feb, 2020 10:59am
The significance of an original collection of Pakistani English poetry lies in its ambition and desire to transcend...
Updated 02 Feb, 2020 08:04am
From inter-cultural to intra-cultural orientations, the world owes much to those who have translated works of...
Updated 02 Feb, 2020 12:32pm
I spent a life-changing year in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the 1990s — a visit I have written about a few times for...
Updated 02 Feb, 2020 08:03am
Litterateur Harold Bloom’s last book is a gift that his admirers and critics will relate to with equal respect...
Updated 02 Feb, 2020 08:04am
Kanhaiyya Laal (Khalid Latif after conversion to Islam) Gauba was a Lahore-born lawyer, author and politician...
Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am
I approach biographies of my favourite writers with some trepidation, more so when the writer in question has ...
Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am
A lucid book adds nuance, depth and deeper understanding about the issue of counterfeit and substandard medicines...
Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am
Random House’s chief copy editor lets loose on how to edit and the copy that infuriates him
Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am
Symbols, metaphors, intricate imagery and poetic prose come together in this labyrinthine novel that is an ode to...
Published 26 Jan, 2020 07:05am
A dazzling collection by one of the best short story writers of our times combines the absurdity of a Coen brothers...
Published 19 Jan, 2020 08:47am
A translation of essays by one of the foremost Chinese writers in early 20th century adds a textured understanding to...
Published 19 Jan, 2020 08:44am
Ilhan Niaz’s latest book on the background dynamics of the British Raj provides valuable insights into today’s...
Published 19 Jan, 2020 08:41am
All characters are so palpable and identifiable in the context of Pakistan’s political history and sociology, that...
Published 19 Jan, 2020 08:35am
The language spoken in Baltistan is said to be directly descended from Old Tibetan, which was used throughout the
Published 19 Jan, 2020 08:33am
