Explicit novel Icebreaker is under fire for its ‘misleading’ cover. A book designer explains — and reveals how covers work
Published 13 Oct, 2024 09:43am
Out of the three principal centres of Indo-Persian civilisation that evolved from a fusion of multiple Vedic and...
Published 13 Oct, 2024 09:32am
A superbly engaging book penned by an Indian author provides the first-ever history of Pakistan women’s cricket, its
Published 06 Oct, 2024 09:30am
Fatima Ijaz inhabits the skin of a poet, but borrows a leaf from the prose writer’s handbook in her sophomore book, a moving me
Published 06 Oct, 2024 09:30am
A new collection of poems by one of Pakistan’s foremost English poets utilises the genre of sonnet to muse about love, loneliness,
Published 06 Oct, 2024 09:30am
I grew up in a home lovingly filled with books; there were books in every room. Books defined who we were. My mother...
Published 06 Oct, 2024 09:30am
A debut novel from Pakistan revolving around multiple plotlines and characters caught in their own tragedies, showcases its author
Published 30 Sep, 2024 04:25pm
A debut science fiction novel from Pakistan deals with heavy issues of colonialism and imperialism but is a rollicking adventure
Published 30 Sep, 2024 03:53pm
Dr Tariq Rahman’s book on Ghalib is an exceptional scholarly work that might prompt new thinking on a few themes in classical...
Published 30 Sep, 2024 03:49pm
During the 1970s and 1980s, some popular slogans among politically charged progressive students in Pakistan included...
Published 30 Sep, 2024 03:33pm
Journalist Robert Fisk’s posthumously published book about the Middle East is an analysis of his decades of reporting from that...
Published 22 Sep, 2024 08:50am
The latest poetry collection from a leading British poet of Pakistani origin contemplates the veracity and interpretation of words
Published 22 Sep, 2024 08:46am
A coffee table book on the city of Banbhore is priceless material for archaeologists and researchers but also contains a wealth of
Published 22 Sep, 2024 08:42am
As important as what to read is what not to read. So, instead of recommending a book on leadership or management...
Published 22 Sep, 2024 08:36am
A book that shows how public spaces, education and markets can be reshaped to nurture cooperation and help a society flourish
Published 15 Sep, 2024 09:28am
The memoirs of late actor Mathew Perry have him talking about his troubled life that drove him to drug and alcohol addiction
Published 15 Sep, 2024 09:25am
Muhammad Ali Siddiqi delves into more of his Evergreens from his reading shelf in an eighth installment
Published 15 Sep, 2024 08:58am
Autumn, 1979. At a church in Hammersmith, [London,] Ted Hughes reads from his collection Crow, which my friend buys...
Published 15 Sep, 2024 08:34am
A book that attempts to give context to Imran Khan’s political trajectory in Pakistan’s dynamic class and political landscape with
Published 08 Sep, 2024 09:45am
A retiree’s recollections of the many different aspects of the Karachi that was and is, along with the inhabitants of this city
Published 08 Sep, 2024 09:41am
A visually striking coffee-table book that delves into the broader socio-political implications of architectural design through...
Published 08 Sep, 2024 09:38am
Last time I wrote about learning Urdu, with a special focus on Ismat Chughtai’s writing. For me, 2024 has been the...
Published 08 Sep, 2024 09:32am
A book by a veteran educationist provides an overview of historical perspectives on teaching and teacher education and argues the
Published 01 Sep, 2024 06:31am
A satirical Urdu novella tells the story of a fantastical planet where animals with various human characteristics reign supreme
Published 01 Sep, 2024 06:31am
A book about Mairaj Muhammad Khan by his friend delves into the often-volatile life and times of the leftist politician and...
Published 01 Sep, 2024 06:31am
I begin with the confession that this column is limited to being a family memory. It is about my maternal uncle and...
Published 01 Sep, 2024 06:31am
Jhumpa Lahiri’s long-awaited return to the short-story genre is a moving collection about the lives of foreigners from various
Published 25 Aug, 2024 08:52am
A translator reflects on what she gained from a pioneering gathering of translators of South Asian languages
Published 25 Aug, 2024 08:51am
A one-day mini Adab Festival offered those attending plenty of insights and thought-provoking perspectives about books and issues
Published 25 Aug, 2024 08:50am
Learned bodies in arts and literature exist for the advancement and promotion of these disciplines, and everywhere ...
Published 25 Aug, 2024 08:49am
It is invariably a good sign when a writer does not allow tragedy and adversity to daunt him or her to the point where one’s...
Published 18 Aug, 2024 10:39am
Elif Shafak’s latest novel is a story about three lives across time and space, connected by history, myth, experience and a drop
Published 18 Aug, 2024 10:30am
A collection of articles looks at Pakistan through a socio-cultural lens
Published 18 Aug, 2024 10:24am
Looking for a great read to take on holiday with you? We had our experts review some of the hottest books of 2024…
Published 18 Aug, 2024 10:15am
In the early years of post-Iqbal history of Urdu poetry, one finds two distinct streams flowing alongside each other — the two...
Published 18 Aug, 2024 10:01am
Khan Academy’s Salman Khan pens a book about the potential of Artificial Intelligence to make quality, personalised education...
Published 11 Aug, 2024 09:22am
A slim, debut collection of Urdu short stories and pen sketches is a smooth and pleasurable read, bereft of abstruse vocabulary...
Published 11 Aug, 2024 09:16am
A collection of orally transmitted Baloch folktales, fables and riddles, essays about folklore, and stories from around the world
Published 11 Aug, 2024 09:13am
Waanyi writer Alexis Wright and her magnum opus Praiseworthy have made history by winning this year’s Miles...
Published 11 Aug, 2024 09:08am
The memoirs of Salman Faruqui, regarded often as one of Pakistan’s ‘super-bureaucrats’ till his retirement, shed light on many...
Published 04 Aug, 2024 09:16am
An English translation of a Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai novella puts an end to the general amnesia about the worth and significance
Published 04 Aug, 2024 09:11am
An illustrated and translated version of Allama Iqbal’s Payaam-i-Mashriq opens up the great poet’s Persian work even for the...
Published 04 Aug, 2024 09:08am
It is perplexing that Muhammad Husain Azad (1830-1910), author of the scintillating, so-called ‘first history of Urdu poetry’,
Updated 05 Aug, 2024 05:14pm
Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, a Sri Lankan novel reads like a devastating and unputdownable memoir of a woman doctor...
Published 28 Jul, 2024 08:37am
A play about campus politics shines a light on how conflicts are resolved by the various political parties active among the...
Published 28 Jul, 2024 08:32am
A book by one of world’s leading clinical microbiologists is part memoir and part history lesson in infectious diseases and their
Published 28 Jul, 2024 08:23am
About a decade ago, when I was living in Karachi, I started thinking about how a lightweight, well-integrated public library model
Published 28 Jul, 2024 08:17am
Winner of the Asif Farrukhi Ilm-o-Agahi Award 2024, an Urdu novel about complex family dynamics explores the edgier psychology of
Published 22 Jul, 2024 08:13am
Media personality Mehdi Hasan delves into the history of the art of persuasion through history and brings his own experiences to
Published 22 Jul, 2024 08:08am
A collection of personal essays by a diaspora Kashmiri explores the intersections of tradition and modernity, familial...
Published 22 Jul, 2024 08:04am
In the 1990s, I first met Rana Abdul Rehman. His body was found a few days ago in a canal near Faisalabad.
Published 22 Jul, 2024 07:59am
Like Ghalib and Faiz before him, Sarmad Sehbai is a master of visual image construction in Urdu poetry and his new collection is
Updated 14 Jul, 2024 12:26pm
A book examines India’s fraught relationship with Occupied Jammu and Kashmir but also expands discussion of the dynamics of
Published 14 Jul, 2024 09:06am
A pioneering Pakistani book provides self-care toolkits to foster emotional intelligence and mental well-being among adolescents
Published 14 Jul, 2024 08:57am
One Sunday morning in Karachi — I was eight — I heard my mother telling my father about a film she’d seen that Sunday morning,...
Published 14 Jul, 2024 08:51am
A sophomore novel is a poignant tale of three generations of a Pakistani immigrant family in the UK and about psychological wounds
Published 07 Jul, 2024 07:53am
A slim collection of parliamentarian Mohsin Dawar’s articles and speeches seeks to shine a spotlight on the travails being faced
Published 07 Jul, 2024 07:49am
A second book compiling articles mostly written for BBC Urdu challenges conventional narratives and presents perspectives that...
Published 07 Jul, 2024 07:46am
Since March 2020, I have been making a concerted effort to learn Urdu. Recently, I took GCSE exams in this beautiful, expressive
Published 07 Jul, 2024 07:42am
Broadcaster Mishal Husain’s memoir about her multi-rooted, multilingual and multi-religious family reads like a novel set against
Published 30 Jun, 2024 08:47am
A science fiction novelette imagines a funny scenario where the Pakistan cricket team is surreptitiously led at a World Cup by an
Published 30 Jun, 2024 08:37am
A selection of essays on diverse topics written for a blog incorporates engagements with the blog readers in an attempt to...
Published 30 Jun, 2024 08:29am
Ustad Amanat Ali Khan, the celebrated scion of the Patiala gharana [clan] of our classical music, did wonders when he took to
Published 30 Jun, 2024 08:25am
The memoirs of one of the most respected journalists and editors in the Pakistan documents 80 years in Mahmood Shaam’s life and...
Published 23 Jun, 2024 10:00am
A novel provides a gripping exploration of the complexities of war in Yemen, and captures the raw experiences of humanitarian...
Published 23 Jun, 2024 09:54am
An anthology of Qurratulain Hyder’s selected works translated in English is a good introduction to the doyenne of Urdu literature
Published 23 Jun, 2024 09:47am
In this last column in the series on the Art of Storytelling, I will write about my most recent adventure in storytelling.
Updated 23 Jun, 2024 10:48am
The Romance Writers of America, once the world’s largest and most powerful authors’ association, filed for bankruptcy on May 30,
Published 16 Jun, 2024 07:04am
Based on her PhD dissertation, a book by a legal scholar surveys competition legislation across South Asia and provides insights
Published 16 Jun, 2024 07:04am
A young adult novella set in a fictional college tackles contemporary hot-button issues such as social media bullying, sexual...
Published 16 Jun, 2024 07:04am
A new book comprehensively traces the phenomena of Bazball, which has helped make Test cricket exciting again
Published 16 Jun, 2024 07:04am
Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot detective series is being continued by a new author, who seems to have risen handsomely to the
Published 09 Jun, 2024 09:23am
The author of Pearls and Shards, Iftikhar Malik, is an eminent academic. Now Professor Emeritus at Bath Spa University, he taught
Published 09 Jun, 2024 09:05am
Brig (retd) A. R. Siddiqi’s recollections about city life in Delhi and the advent of cinema culture before Partition transport the
Updated 10 Jun, 2024 12:37pm
What an actor, director, broadcaster and conversationalist Talat Hussain was, truly iconic in so many ways. Just the right pauses
Published 09 Jun, 2024 08:57am
A relatively slim but erudite and insightful book provides a guided tour, traversing nature, science, economics and politics, into
Published 02 Jun, 2024 08:09am
Baidar Bakht’s excellent English translations of selected Urdu poems by Parvin Shere will help bring her the recognition she meri
Published 02 Jun, 2024 08:09am
A fresh translation of an Urdu novel by the late Altaf Fatima is lucid enough to be read on its own merits
Published 02 Jun, 2024 08:09am
Seldom has a book of poems in English resonated with me as this slender volume, Yardstick of Life. Perhaps the...
Published 02 Jun, 2024 08:09am
Feryal Ali-Gauhar’s new novel, set in a remote mountain village, combines commentary on tradition and patriarchy with a magical
Updated 26 May, 2024 09:34am
A book based on a series of lectures uses a philosophical approach to analyse the cultural and spiritual aspects of Iftikhar Arif
Published 26 May, 2024 08:35am
A scholarly treatise attempts to present the history of democracy as well as critique it
Published 26 May, 2024 08:34am
In the first part of this column, I had explained how the Memorise, Connect, Improvise (MCI) method of interactive...
Updated 26 May, 2024 09:31am
he book addresses underdeveloped countries of the world. The author feels that the world at the moment
Published 19 May, 2024 07:38am
I wish to begin this piece with the lines that Hasan Zaidi quoted to end his essay on Paul Auster in Books and...
Published 19 May, 2024 07:38am
A rare and long-awaited collection of fiction from a distinguished man of letters leaves the reader thirsting for more
Published 19 May, 2024 07:38am
A debut collection of short stories from Bangladesh marks its author as a notable addition to the vibrant storytellers
Published 19 May, 2024 07:38am
A collection of essays by experts analyses the multiple, simultaneous crises facing Pakistan in the political, economic,
Published 19 May, 2024 07:38am
Paul Auster, a great American writer of sophistication, innovation and intellect passed away on April 30
Published 12 May, 2024 10:12am
I first ran into Paul Auster completely by chance at Liberty Books in Karachi’s Clifton area in 2003. This was...
Published 12 May, 2024 10:04am
An academic book providing a comparative look at pre- and post-Partition era writing in Urdu literature is an extremely useful...
Published 12 May, 2024 10:01am
“This tale is steeped in the colours of the East and its connection to the conventions of Urdu literature is so deep,” writes...
Published 12 May, 2024 09:56am
The book is a poetic intellectual exploration of Shaikh Ayaz’s selected verses that have been translated from Sindhi into English
Published 12 May, 2024 09:50am
Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s Ghazal Cosmopolitan is, in her own words, “part love letter to Urdu… and part manual for the craft of ghazal
Published 05 May, 2024 08:13am
A compilation of Urdu letters written by Japanese academics and students to a Pakistani Urdu scholar is an enriching read for...
Published 05 May, 2024 08:05am
Actor, producer, director, author and voice-over artist Henry Winkler’s memoir is most poignant when he deals with the curse of
Published 05 May, 2024 07:46am
The Bangladeshi-American author Rumaan Alam wrote Leave the World Behind just before the Covid-19 pandemic. The novel was...
Published 05 May, 2024 07:42am
I.A. Rehman’s posthumously published memoirs narrate his early life and the making of one of the greatest human rights activists
Updated 09 May, 2024 03:37pm
A gripping historical drama centring around a young girl and a London bookshop involved in a Cold War espionage network offers a
Published 28 Apr, 2024 10:29am
