William Dalrymple in Pakistan
In the New York Review of Books, birthday-boy William Dalrymple describes the recent elections in Pakistan as the triumph of the secular middle-class over the conservative feudal landlords. He writes: “To widespread surprise, the elections in Pakistan were free and fair; and Pakistanis voted heavily in favor of liberal centrist parties opposed to both the mullahs and the army. Here, in a country normally held up in the more Islamophobic right-wing press of Western countries as the epitome of ‘what went wrong’ in the Islamic world, a popular election resulted in an unequivocal vote for moderate, secular democracy.”
William also takes note of the changed literary landscape in Pakistan.
There have also been particularly impressive new works of fiction by Pakistani writers, among them Kamila Shamsie’s Kartography and Broken Verses, Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers, and Moni Mohsin’s End of Innocence. One of Daniyal Mueenuddin’s short stories, his wonderfully witty “Nawabdin Electrician,” was published in The New Yorker of August 27, 2007.
Recently Mohsin Hamid, author of the best-seller The Reluctant Fundamentalist, wrote about this change in culture. Having lived as a banker in New York and London, he returned home to Lahore to find the country unrecognizable. He was particularly struck by “the incredible new world of media that had sprung up…, a world of music videos, fashion programmes, independent news networks, cross-dressing talk-show hosts, religious debates, stock-market analysis…. Not just television, but also private radio stations and newspapers have flourished…. The result is an unprecedented openness…. Young people are speaking and dressing differently…. The Vagina Monologues was recently performed on stage in Pakistan to standing ovations.”
[Mohsin will be reading here at Vassar on April 9, 5.30 PM. Folks in the NY-NJ area–welcome!]
When I read the piece in the NYRB I was a bit startled when Dalrymple went into this encominium for Pak-Anglian literature. Each of the books he mentions is in English. What about Urdu, Punjabi and Sindhi fiction and non-fiction (apart from the press and magazines)? Have these also had an efflorescence. The protesters (the lawyers and the wider public) represent a swath of society that is far larger than the English-language intelligentsia. Perhaps you could ask Mohsin Hamid who these young people are who are dressing differently — the set that he writes about in Moth Smoke or in The Reluctant Fundamentalist (after all the protagonist there sheds his Saville Brothers suit for the salwar of the bazaar)…..
Speaking of English non-fiction, a small plug for Naked Punch Asia whose first issue came out last month. Contact info for it: http://www.nakedpunch.com/ The 10th issue of Naked Punch is on South Asia.
Vijay.
Comment by Vijay Prashad — March 20, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
I always find it amusing to read these startled pieces about Pakistan from non-SouthAsian writers. It seems that any facet of Pakistan that does not fit the current favorite stereotype of Pakistan is a revelation.
Comment by nuzhat aziz — March 21, 2008 @ 8:08 pm