“Like most people, I read a book or two on holiday,” says Stuart, a character in Julian Barnes’s 1991 novel...
Published 05 Feb, 2023 08:15am
An economist synthesises the political economy of gender relations in India with female fans of the Bollywood star
Published 05 Feb, 2023 08:15am
The final instalment of a collaborative novel trilogy by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar is an exhilarating ride that will appeal
Published 05 Feb, 2023 08:15am
In a best-selling, award-winning novel, translations that move ideas across cultures also enable the supremacy of an invading,
Published 05 Feb, 2023 08:15am
Experts tell us there are at least 200 versions of the text in more than 50 languages. However, standard accounts of the fable’...
Updated 30 Jan, 2023 10:03am
A collection of short stories examines girlhood and womanhood with tenderness, originality and genuine wit
Published 29 Jan, 2023 06:23am
A former Indian diplomat, academic, historian and analyst attempts to make sense of the dynamics that have made the Middle Eas...
Published 29 Jan, 2023 06:23am
A tribute to the late journalist and activist Ahfazur Rahman casts a wide net, encompassing his struggles for media ind...
Published 29 Jan, 2023 06:23am
A much-praised novel by Katie Kitamura does not disappoint, its writing restrained, understated and subtle, yet packing a big
Published 22 Jan, 2023 08:58am
A debut novel takes on the hapless fate of streetwalkers who are exploited by the very law enforcers who should be protecting them
Published 22 Jan, 2023 08:51am
A political scientist deconstructs the work of the Council of Islamic Ideology and how it fits into Pakistan’s ‘Islamisation’
Published 22 Jan, 2023 08:43am
There was a time — not very long ago — when students, labour, journalists and a representative segment of...
Published 22 Jan, 2023 08:30am
In November 2020, former president of the United States, Barack Obama, released his memoir A Promised Land. According to...
Published 22 Jan, 2023 08:23am
A book on the Royal Indian Navy mutiny of 1946 is a compellingly good read for connoisseurs of South Asian history in general, and
Published 15 Jan, 2023 07:11am
An Urdu translation of one of the masterpieces of mountaineering and exploration work is as much a reader’s delight as the...
Published 15 Jan, 2023 07:04am
Prelude: I have been trying to write my lived experience of a heart attack for over a month now. But words didn’t flow.
Published 15 Jan, 2023 06:59am
So many of us — women, especially — would nod in agreement at a grandmother admonishing a young girl to tie back her hair at...
Published 15 Jan, 2023 06:56am
The repetition of the theme over centuries reveals it to be a major preoccupation of our literature.
Published 08 Jan, 2023 07:42am
A new novel is an attention-grabbing examination of the subtext of H.G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr Moreau and a shapeshi...
Published 08 Jan, 2023 07:42am
Huma Abedin’s autobiography can be split into a retelling of the writer’s personal and professional lives. The former is heart...
Published 08 Jan, 2023 07:42am
A new book traces the stories of the Sherpas in Nepal, who have been providing invaluable assistance to international mountaine...
Updated 18 Jan, 2023 05:17pm
An excellent biography of scholar and freedom fighter Bahadur Yar Jang, who achieved so much in the short 39 years that nature...
Published 01 Jan, 2023 08:59am
A debut novel with a memorable storyline offers a poignant study of the secrets women keep to survive and the perils that could...
Published 01 Jan, 2023 08:54am
Merging the personal and the public, this highly readable book will appeal to serious academics and to shrine culture’s die-har...
Published 01 Jan, 2023 08:50am
It may not have been so in the past — perhaps because of the well-rounded scholarship of the literary stalwarts...
Published 01 Jan, 2023 08:45am
Novelist Charlotte Brontë was devastated when her sister Emily died from tuberculosis on December 19, 1848....
Published 25 Dec, 2022 07:15am
An anthropologist examines Pakistan’s jails and their history, mainly through the eyes of the incarcerated
Published 25 Dec, 2022 07:15am
A beautifully written novel set in the 18th century that encompasses two journeys, one about a physical sojourn across cont
Published 25 Dec, 2022 07:15am
The translation of Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai’s Pashto autobiography into English will allow a wider readership to appreciate...
Published 25 Dec, 2022 07:15am
Nasir Abbas Nayyar is a scholar whose style is becoming clearer by the day, as his newest book, applying modern critical the
Published 18 Dec, 2022 04:40am
An excellent new book about the defiant teenager Ahed Tamimi illuminates Palestinian children’s experiences under Israeli...
Published 18 Dec, 2022 04:40am
Featuring adorably sweet illustrations by Namerah A. Khan, this simple book tackles a serious problem
Published 18 Dec, 2022 04:40am
The causal link between environmental damage and pandemics during the Anthropocene is a recurring topic in books...
Updated 19 Feb, 2023 08:26am
An enjoyable thriller that’s very much a publication of this era. But it is no great work of literary fiction that will live on a
Published 18 Dec, 2022 04:40am
Orhan Pamuk’s pseudo-historical detective story set on a fictional island in Ottoman times reminds us that the postmodern author’s
Published 11 Dec, 2022 11:13am
A monograph argues that Afghan refugees in Pakistan have transformed space into place, imbuing it with emotional, social and...
Published 11 Dec, 2022 11:07am
A treat for researchers, a book by a former vice admiral offers deep insight into Gwadar and Pakistan’s coastline for casual...
Published 11 Dec, 2022 10:59am
The story is set in an Irish town, during the Christmas season of the year 1985. The small community is dominated by the church.
Published 11 Dec, 2022 10:54am
This year’s Adab Fest focused quite a bit on climate change in the wake of the recent floods, but also explored language, art,
Published 04 Dec, 2022 07:06am
A poignant novel presents a fresh take on the socio-political facets of life for brown youth in America and explores
Published 04 Dec, 2022 07:00am
Arif Hasan’s latest book explores the changes to Tharparkar through his own long and rich association with the region
Published 04 Dec, 2022 06:52am
Our society has always known the power of stories, and employed them in various roles from education, to propaganda,...
Published 04 Dec, 2022 06:46am
In a thoroughly researched and well-written new book that deserves to be widely read, Dr Tariq Rahman puts the spotlight on the
Published 27 Nov, 2022 06:44am
An expatriate Indian Muslim journalist suffers through his life in the Middle East in this novel with only the author’s random...
Published 27 Nov, 2022 06:38am
A family of Gangetic Muslim feudals finds itself ravaged by the seismic change induced in their lives by the division of India
Published 27 Nov, 2022 06:28am
This is Mir Taqi Mir, invoking the candle and moth symbolism — something ubiquitous in classical Urdu poetry. Indeed, it is found
Published 27 Nov, 2022 06:23am
Imposed upon us by society, culture, tradition or simply the way we’ve been raised, long-held beliefs can be a stumbling block in
Published 27 Nov, 2022 06:19am
When I heard about the government banning the film Joyland — even after it was declared fit to be screened by ...
Published 20 Nov, 2022 07:00am
A movingly written and honest novel about how filial ties and embedded prejudice can jeopardise an interracial relationship
Published 20 Nov, 2022 07:00am
Maktaba-e-Danyal has published the complete works of the most eminent living Urdu poet and it is a special treat not just for the
Published 20 Nov, 2022 07:00am
In Mirza Athar Baig’s latest novel set in the mountains, valleys and caves of the Potohar region, nothing happens many times while
Published 20 Nov, 2022 07:00am
A debut novel frames its narrative as a detective story to explore power structures in Pakistan and the plight of sex workers
Published 13 Nov, 2022 08:37am
Celebrated Japanese author Sayaka Murata’s collection of short stories takes on outlandish concepts, but makes them believable...
Published 13 Nov, 2022 08:28am
Atif Tauqeer’s latest collection of poems is filled with a painful nostalgia for the poet’s native country and a longing to set it
Published 13 Nov, 2022 08:23am
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib began and concluded his first collection of Urdu poetry — his Divan published in 1816 — with a
Published 13 Nov, 2022 08:08am
Usman T. Malik is on a roll, winning yet another accolade for his collection of short stories Midnight Doorways: Fables from...
Published 13 Nov, 2022 07:52am
Now in its fourth year, the Zeenat Haroon Rashid (ZHR) Writing Prize for Women is awarded to Saira Mahmood for her non-fiction...
Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am
This is a qissa of three ghosts, a history they wrote together, and another history or fiction yet to be fully written, which...
Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am
An unusual romance novel by a Nigerian author offers a poignant study of love and coming to terms with grief
Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am
A well-written debut novel casts an eye at the ugly realities of the lives of minorities in Pakistan and the exploitation of
Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am
An effortless read that can captivate readers with its textual and visual wealth, an arresting book on heritage documents 19...
Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am
Containing whirlwind romance, transportive imagery and plenty of food for thought, a well-crafted collection of retold Pakistani
Published 30 Oct, 2022 11:16am
A laudable attempt by a Pakistani writer to build a story based on a character’s inner life is let down by too many self-indulgent
Published 30 Oct, 2022 11:09am
Fisk’s Lebanon, Behr’s Imperial Japan and Junge’s and Schroeder’s Nazi Germany — all provide insight into nations at war
Published 30 Oct, 2022 11:03am
Yet another translation of the Qaseeda Burda Shareef [Ode of the Mantle], composed in Arabic by Imam Muhammad Sharafuddin
Published 30 Oct, 2022 10:55am
Through this study that gives a historical background to Pakistan’s megacity and its constantly changing social, economic...
Published 30 Oct, 2022 10:52am
Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele broke a great many rules with his work, particularly propriety ones. Impassioned and
Published 23 Oct, 2022 07:16am
A book elucidates how violent suppression of dissent in postcolonial states is a direct result of the inherent violence of the
Published 23 Oct, 2022 07:16am
To deal with the terror of facing a blank page and having nothing to write upon it, writers over millennia have sought help from
Published 23 Oct, 2022 07:16am
An anthology brings together 22 writers’ experiences and writings on the culture of food in Muslim South Asia as well as their...
Published 23 Oct, 2022 07:16am
An anthology of 56 real-life stories of patients from different segments of society provides an insight into the lives of the...
Published 16 Oct, 2022 08:35am
Kate Mosse avoids the trap of complacently resting on her laurels, for her latest historical novel is every bit as well-researched
Published 16 Oct, 2022 08:29am
A respected historian gives various perspectives on the province’s ancient history, so readers can judge their veracity for...
Published 16 Oct, 2022 08:22am
Kamila Shamsie’s new novel Best of Friends begins as a love letter to Karachi, that city by the sea which the writer spent so much
Published 16 Oct, 2022 08:17am
A book attempts to present a sketch of capitalism in Pakistan, what form it takes, what class structure prevails in society...
Published 09 Oct, 2022 07:25am
A ground-breaking work is objective literature that rises above partisan subjectivity
Published 09 Oct, 2022 07:18am
It was in the 1990s that veteran social worker Sadiqa Salahuddin started working in the villages outside Khairpur...
Published 09 Oct, 2022 07:06am
For the past six years, The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction has encouraged Pakistani short story writers to go...
Published 09 Oct, 2022 07:03am
Kamila Shamsie’s latest novel is a compelling work that, once again, exhibits her range, verve and her unrelenting ethical impulse
Published 02 Oct, 2022 06:49am
In an example of prudishness forcing critical insight, literary critic Farman Fatehpuri makes an interesting point in Urdu Ki...
Published 02 Oct, 2022 06:49am
Activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s first-ever book consists of writings he produced mostly in jail, which were subsequently smuggled
Updated 04 Oct, 2022 02:57pm
The author of Best of Friends — a novel about the dynamics of female friendships changing over a period of decades...
Published 02 Oct, 2022 06:49am
A scholarly work conveys the poeticism and richness of imagination, thought and emotion constituting the Urdu ghazal, along with a
Published 25 Sep, 2022 12:17pm
A novel about courage, family and the meaning of love in an atmosphere so clogged with misogyny, it’s a wonder that the characters
Published 25 Sep, 2022 12:07pm
An American author provides a simplified introduction to French thinker Rene Girard’s compelling insights into human desire
Published 25 Sep, 2022 12:00pm
What makes Kazmi unique is the dignity and the ever-so-soft aesthetic embodiment he gives to his pain.
Published 25 Sep, 2022 11:53am
Javed Jabbar’s latest memoir is a recounting of a turbulent period in Pakistan’s chequered political history and a now mostly...
Updated 27 Oct, 2022 05:52pm
A charming debut novel paints a personal investigation of grief, death, relationships and eating disorders with masterful
Published 18 Sep, 2022 09:12am
“In all of the eminent was the quality of a singularly uncritical era. It was a time when a prominent man could form himself on a
Published 18 Sep, 2022 08:56am
In this dictionary of sorts, the author gives simple explanations and meanings of social media terminology and internet-specific
Published 18 Sep, 2022 08:51am
A debut novel is an unfailingly honest coming-of-age story which examines adolescence, family, home and religion, all the while...
Published 11 Sep, 2022 06:12am
A new book reinforces Pakhtuns’ debt to Khushal Khan Khattak’s genius, for his immense literary and social contributions and for
Published 11 Sep, 2022 06:06am
A book is both a study and an analysis of Shaikh Ayaz’s famous Sindhi opera
Published 11 Sep, 2022 05:59am
We warmed up quickly to the charming brother. He mentioned the sama [meditation ceremony] of the whirling dervishes that happened
Published 11 Sep, 2022 05:54am
Building on more than a decade’s worth of experience as a leadership trainer and career coach, the author examines the myriad...
Published 11 Sep, 2022 05:50am
Moneeza Hashmi’s book is a debt of honour to Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s fans, who would have known nothing about the sentiments Faiz the...
Published 04 Sep, 2022 11:10am
Inaam Nadeem’s Urdu translation of an English translation of a Bengali language novel not only reads truer to the original, but
Published 04 Sep, 2022 11:05am
A reprint of a book about Alexander the Great’s campaigns in modern-day Pakistan is often speculative and can exasperate
Published 04 Sep, 2022 10:57am
Among the many curious and fantastic characters encountered in the world of classical Urdu literature, the kutni...
Published 04 Sep, 2022 10:54am
