Literary line-up

Four authors from Pakistan have been longlisted for the 2013 edition of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. Three writers are Pakistani and one is of Pakistani origin. All of the selected authors are familiar with the tiny minority in the country that reads fiction in English. Jamil Ahmad, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Muhammad Hanif and Roopa Farooki are all well-established writers in their genre. While no Pakistani was nominated for the 2012 prize, the novel Home Boy from Pakistan bagged the gold prize in 2011. A shortlist is now to be decided by the committee with the prize to be announced in November this year.

English South Asian literature has grown at a remarkable pace over the last decade. Pakistani writers have more recently joined their counterparts from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh — with some like Mohsin Hamid claiming international fame. But, of course, these books are hardly read at all at home and have little impact on the wider literary scene. However, despite this, we can take the prize nominations as an encouraging step towards reversing this trend. Musharraf Ali Farooqi has also recently come up with the first children’s book written in English by a Pakistani writer.

The fact is that in Urdu, English and all regional languages, we need to encourage the habit of reading. Sadly, it seems to be fading out in too many places. It is unclear if literature in English can really play any role in this but, at the least, it can promote the notion that Pakistanis are capable of original writing, touching unusual and sometimes extremely sensitive themes which expose the class, gender and status discrepancies in our society. Perhaps, looking at things from a global perspective allows people to understand Pakistan just a little better and recognise what factors turn it into the place it has become today. But beyond this debate, the fact is that prizes in any event are good news as far as we are concerned, given that so few come Pakistan’s way, especially in the field of the arts.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2012.