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Bestselling and critically acclaimed, Lahore-based Mirza Athar Baig is one of the most important contemporary Urdu writers. Hassan's State of Affairs -- his first book to be translated into English -- is a surreal ride through Pakistan. It follows an accountant, Hassan, and a group of filmmakers, Masquerade Productions, who are working on Pakistan's first surrealist film, titled This Film Cannot Be Made. As the film's production runs into hurdles, escalating from the comic to the horrific, the text itself explodes into multiple storylines, genres and characters, and bends language and form -- the result is an entirely new kind of novel. Brilliantly translated by Haider Shahbaz, this audacious, highly experimental, yet hugely entertaining book is a fitting introduction to one of the most exciting writers working in any language today.
Urdu and Indo-Persian Thought, Poetics, and Belles Lettres, is a collection on the subject of Urdu poetics, Dastan, translation studies in Urdu, and Indo-Persian. The essays employ interdisciplinary perspectives for exploring the dynamic literary landscape of the South Asian subcontinent since the sixteenth century. The individual topics in the collection depict a plausible picture of how the development of Urdu and Indo-Persian thoughts and poetics have influenced one another for centuries. Contributors are: Satya Hedge, Prashant Keshavmurthy, Pasha M. Khan, Mehr Afshan Faruqi, David Lelyveld, Natalia Prigarina, Carla Petievich, Christina Oesterheld, Baidar Bakht, Frances Pritchett, Gail Minault, Ludmila Vassilieva.
This book presents a picture of Pakistani society in its earliest years through Aziz Khan, a representative of ancient and traditional values, and the Shah brothers, who exploit the resources and people of the new country for their personal gain. The intricate story gradually unfolds to reveal the emotions of its characters and describes the suffering of Aziz Khan with poignancy.
Originally published in 2011, The Mosquito Bite Author is the seventh novel by the acclaimed Turkish author Barış Bıçakçı. It follows the daily life of an aspiring novelist, Cemil, in the months after he submits his manuscript to a publisher in Istanbul. Living in an unremarkable apartment complex in the outskirts of Ankara, Cemil spends his days going on walks, cooking for his wife, repairing leaks in his neighbor’s bathroom, and having elaborate imaginary conversations in his head with his potential editor about the meaning of life and art. Uncertain of whether his manuscript will be accepted, Cemil wavers between thoughtful meditations on the origin of the universe and the trajectory of political literature in Turkey, panic over his own worth as a writer, and incredulity toward the objects that make up his quiet world in the Ankara suburbs.
Murtaza Bhutto, 1954-1996, political leader from Pakistan.
'NDiaye is a hypnotic storyteller with an unflinching understanding of the rock-bottom reality of most people's life.' New York Times ' One of France's most exciting prose stylists.' The Guardian. Obsessed by her encounters with the mysterious green women, and haunted by the Garonne River, a nameless narrator seeks them out in La Roele, Paris, Marseille, and Ouagadougou. Each encounter reveals different aspects of the women; real or imagined, dead or alive, seductive or suicidal, driving the narrator deeper into her obsession, in this unsettling exploration of identity, memory and paranoia. Self Portrait in Green is the multi-prize winning, Marie NDiaye's brilliant subversion of the memoir. Written in diary entries, with lyrical prose and dreamlike imagery, we start with and return to the river, which mirrors the narrative by posing more questions than it answers.
Pegged on journalist Sameer Arshad Khatlani's visit to Pakistan, this book provides insights into the country beyond what we already know about it. These include details on the impact of India's soft power, thanks to Bollywood, and the remnants of Pakistan's multireligious past, and how it frittered away advantages of impressive growth in the first three decades of its existence by embracing religious conservatism. The book profiles extraordinary people-lawyers, poets, musicians and even a former military chief-who stood up to an oppressive state. It has historical anecdotes, like the story of an ordinary woman who became the 'muse and mistress', and often the 'brains behind the regime of a ...
Selected and translated by writer, editor and translator par excellence Muhammad Umar Memon, the twenty-five stories in this book represent the finest short fiction in Urdu literature. In his Introduction, Memon traces the evolution of the Urdu short story from its origins in the work of writers like Munshi Premchand-'the first professional short story writer in Urdu'-through the emergence of the Progressives in the late 1930s, whose writings were unabashedly political and underpinned their Marxist ideologies, to the post-Independence 'Modernist' era, and today's generation of avant-garde, experimental writers of Urdu fiction. Every story in the anthology illustrates one or the other facet of the form in the Urdu literary tradition. But even more than for their formal technique and inventiveness, these stories have been included because of their power and impact on the reader. Death and poverty face off in Premchand's masterpiece
2084 bce: In the great city of Mohenjodaro, along the banks of the Indus, a young man named Prkaa becomes increasingly mistrustful of the growing authority of a cult of priests. 455 ce: In the fabled university city of Takshasilla, Buddhamitra, a monk, is distressed by how his colleagues seem to have lost sight of the essence of the Buddha's message of compassion. 1620 ce: During the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, a pair of itinerant fortune seekers endeavour to swindle the patrician elite, only to find themselves utterly disillusioned. 1857 ce: Mir Sahib, a wandering minstrel, traverses the realms of human deception even as a rebellion against the British Raj is advancing across Indi...
The history of Delhi has been told and retold many times. Often the intent is to use history as an ideological tool for staking a claim to the present of the city. In Intizar Husain’s retelling, it is the tale itself that becomes delectable. A popular recital that highlights the forgotten nuances of the story, Once There was a City Named Dilli, is a celebration of the people and culture that made the city unforgettable. Forts, walled cities, bazaars, diwan khanas, durbars, and the Yamuna itself come alive in this ode to a capital serenaded and ravaged by powerful kings and chieftains over time.