Back to Lahore: Bapsi Sidhwa in town for literary festival

The Urdu translation of her first novel The Croweaters will also be launched here.

LAHORE:

“It is your experiences and feelings that carve the way for any writer. I guess if I was born today the nature of my writing would be very different,” Bapsi Sidhwa said on Tuesday.

Sidhwa who is in town for the launch of the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) was reminiscing about her honeymoon to the Kohistan area and how the story of a Punjabi girl who had led an atrocious life across the Indus had inspired her to start writing.

Settled in Houston, USA, for 30 years, Sidhwa is famous for novels such as The Croweaters, The American Brat and Pakistani Bride. Born in Karachi and raised in Lahore, Sidhwa is excited about the LLF.

“Hosting the LLF is a very bold and strong step,” she said. “Lahore is the centre of culture, art and literature … even history, but Karachi has this metropolitan pace where they latch onto things quickly. But it gives me great joy to see Lahore catching up.”



Sidhwa will also be launching Jungle Wala Sahab, the Urdu translation of The Croweaters in Lahore. “Three year ago Bano Qudsia said to me that it was high time that my books were translated.” “Bano believed that my work should reach the masses. I went with her idea and got it translated.” Sidhwa was introduced to Mohammad Omar Memon who translated the novel.

“Apart from this launch, a book of my short stories, The Language of Love, and another one of essays, Shadows and Silver Linings have been printed. I don’t know how the publishers plan on launching them all together but that seems to be the plan.”

Referring to her short stories she said, “I am a novelist but even in a novel you cannot put in everything so I wanted to give the left out ideas a new life. That is how these short stories came into being. Those familiar with my work will spot a resemblance.”

“I don’t like being a superficial writer … I like going into the depth of the matter. However, I really enjoyed writing these short stories because they felt complete to me.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2013.