That Intizar sahib was asked to read from Basti shows his most recent publisher had upper hand on what was to be read.
CHICAGO: I have recently been reading with pleasure the many articles and interviews with Intizar Husain that have appeared in the press in the wake of his nomination for the prize offered by the Man Booker Foundation. But some dismay also crept in. Here is how the prize is defined on the official website: “The Man Booker International Prize recognises one writer for his or her achievement in fiction. Worth £60,000, the prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.” The statement further explicitly differentiates it from the far more known annual prize, Man Booker Prize for Fiction. “In seeking out literary excellence, the judges consider a writer’s body of work rather than a single novel.” Unfortunately, the website does not indicate how the nominations are gathered, except for pointing out that it does not invite submissions from publishers.
One assumes, then, that the nomination committee must have gathered and read more than one book and only then formed a recommendation that was perforce based on more than one book. And yet, in all the writings that have appeared concerning Intizar sahib’s nomination, I have seen only one book mentioned: Basti. And that too with reference only to its recent reissue under the NBR imprint, with an introduction by Asif Farrukhi. It is, therefore, important to put on record the work of many who contributed to creating a corpus of Intizar Husain in English translation, of which some, if not all, must have played an important role in forming the committee’s opinion.
Based on what is available at the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, it appears that the first book was a collection of stories, An Unwritten Epic, translated with an introduction by Muhammad Umar Memon (Lahore, 1987). The book was reprinted in the US under a different title, The Seventh Door and other stories (Boulder, 1998).
Meanwhile, Frances W Pritchett published her translation of the novel Basti (New Delhi, 1995), with her own introduction. The book was reissued by OUP (India) in 2007 and contained in addition, a long introduction by Muhammad Umar Memon. The same translation was then republished last year from New York, except that it now had an introduction from Asif Farrukhi instead.
Two valuable additions were made by Alok Bhalla and Vishwamitr Adil, both containing translations of selected short stories, with suitable introductions: Leaves and other stories (New Delhi, 1993), and A Chronicle of the Peacocks: stories of partition, exile and lost memories (New Delhi, 2004).
In addition, two collections of translated short stories, with some overlap, were published by Moazzam Sheikh: Circle and other stories (Islamabad, 2002) and Stories (New Delhi, 2004). The same year, Rakhshanda Jalil published her selected translations: Circle and other stories (New Delhi, 2004).
In other words, the committee had access to one novel and six collections of short stories. That Intizar sahib was asked to read only from Basti simply indicates that his most recent publishers had the upper hand in dictating what was to be read. I wish he had resisted and read at least one of his marvelous stories and also mentioned his other translators in his recent columns. Translators have been called ‘traitors’, and worse. Theirs is generally a labour of love, more often a thankless task, and only rarely something that brings them recognition of some sort. What one should hope now is that some of the creative talent of Anglophone Pakistanis will now be devoted to presenting many more translations, and not only of Intizar sahib’s works but also of those forgotten masters whose names are linked in literary history with Pakistan, such as Ghulam Abbas, Ahmad Nadim Qasmi, Abdullah Hussein, Abul Fazl Siddiqui, Muhammad Khalid Akhtar, Khadija Mastoor, Khalida Husain and Hasan Manzar.
CM Naim
Professor emeritus,
University of Chicago
Published in The Express Tribune, June 11th, 2013.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
