Personality and the contribution of renowned novelists to the Urdu literature were discussed on the second day of the ongoing 16th International Urdu Conference 2023, being held at the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi.
The work of well-known novelists including Khalid Akhtar, Bano Qudsia, Abdullah Hussain, Shamsur Rahman Farooqi, Qurat-ul-Ain Haider and Shaukat Siddiqui came under discussion.
The first session on the second day of the moot on Friday held a panel discussion on 'Urdu Novel ke Mashahir'. The session was presided over by Mirza Athar Baig.
Kashif Raza, Akhtar Raza Salimi, Ziaul Hasan, Muhammad Hameed Shahid, Najiba Arif and Mahmood Sham expressed their views.
In his presidential address, Mirza Athar Baig said that popular fiction moves with the reader while literary fiction demands that the reader moves with it.
He said that the requirements for the novel and its reader are changing now. He said that the new young novelists are very careful while writing. "I think, the youth should write openly and should not care about the old template," Baig said.
He said that writing a novel is a patient work. Young writers develop a free spirit when writing novels.
Mahmood Sham discussed Shaukat Siddiqui's novel "Khuda Ki Basti". He described the situation at the time of writing of the said novel to the present in the light of facts, which the participants liked and applauded.
Mehmood Sham said that anyone who has watched "Khuda Ki Basti" as a drama on PTV or who has read the novel will find it easy to understand today's "Khuda Ki Basti". He mentioned that our bodies are free but our minds are chained.
Najiba Arif while talking about Qurat-ul-Ain Haider said that the definition of Urdu novel is a chapter that cannot be forgotten.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 2nd, 2023.
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