Persona Granta

Granta launches its autumn 2010 issue dedicated to Pakistan.

KARACHI: Pakistan, dubbed the most "happening place" in the world right now, is seen from the outside as a country ravaged by war, a nation desperate for peace and a tortured democracy struggling against staggering odds. Small wonder then that the crème de la crème of international literary publications, Granta, launched its autumn 2010 issue dedicated to it.

The Karachi launch was held by the British Council on Friday at the British deputy high commission. The evening began with the artist who gave the magazine its vibrant cover. An emotional Islam Gul barely managed to get these words out: "I am incredibly happy today for the first time in my life". He was so overwhelmed at one point that he had to excuse himself off stage. Indeed, for a man who started painting nearly 30 years ago in Peshawar, making the cover of this magazine was an unbelievable achievment.

The panel discussion was held with editor John Freeman, contributor Declan Walsh, who is the foreign correspondent for The Guardian in Pakistan, Faiza S Khan, the editor-in-chief of the literary review Life's too Short, Mohammed Hanif, the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Murtaza Razvi, an editor and writer with Dawn newspaper. Moderating the discussion were Nadeem Farooq Paracha, head of editorial and communications, and Zahra Rizvi, head of programmes for the British Council, Lahore.

International interest and a suggestion by Australian novelist Peter Carey about a year and a half ago made Freeman think seriously about dedicating an edition to Pakistan. He had no preconceived notions about the topics the writers would choose. And in a radio interview this week, he said that they had considered a Pakistani editor for a split second, but dismissed the idea to avoid favouritism and bias.

In response to a question on writers reining in or censoring their creativity, Hanif, who contributed an excerpt from his upcoming book, said, "Times haven't been good for creativity," he said. "In fact, times haven't been good since before I was born." Hanif lamented the lack of conversation on art, saying that those were the real issues which have garnered a great deal of interest outside the country.

Walsh, who also contributed an excerpt from his upcoming book, said 80 to 90 per cent of a journalist's reporting doesn't make it to print and those are the experiences he is penning in his larger work. For Walsh, the strongest piece in the magazine is Imtiaz Hussain's four-page window into the Ziaul Haq era, "a period which defines Pakistan today".

While speaking to The Express Tribune, Faiza S Khan expressed her clear disappointment with the fiction. "Considering the literary boom is based on fiction, it was surprising that the non-fiction in the magazine was much better," she remarked.

The panel heavily debated a piece by Jameel Ahmed. "The piece was written 40 years ago," Khan clarified. "It was written at a time before Pakistan became sexy and fashionable and was left to gather dust, but even today it connects with people."

For his part, Razvi described the edition as "quite chilling". Many of the issues were Orientalist as well and that "one was looking for more literature than just a compilation of reports". It was perhaps in this vein that Freeman was asked why he thought the writers had chosen certain topics - violence against and the oppression of women and terrorism - which can be viewed as Orientalist themes.

"You can't tell the writers what to talk about," he replied. "They have their obsessions. The magazine is an explosion of real life with strong references to things that are familiar and takes the issues a bit deeper. Granta:112 has a lot of violence but also a lot of love and you would have to be a moron not to understand that."

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2010.