Neither Night nor Day
January 31, 2008
Our contributor, Soniah Kamal’s short story ‘The Breast’ is included in the captioned anthology published by Harper Collins, India. In the recent months, Soniah was busy with her academic pursuits and will be writing for Pak Tea House regularly.Despite her Pakistani origins, Soniah is a true global citizen as she has lived in different countries and walked through myriad cultures. Her writings therefore bring forth a unique sensibility that is nuanced by her inherited culture but is larger in scope and effect.
We are posting a few lines below from a review found at Women’s Writing. Also another review published on the erudite Ruined by Reading blog can be found here. Finally, readers mught wish to read an interesting interview with Rakshanda Jalil, the super-talented editor of this anthology. This piece makes some profound statements on Pakistani literature; however, I am posting a quote from Jalil’s interview, that will excite the bloggers:
Incidentally, after having edited this collection, I have become an ardent devotee of the internet and the huge world it opens up. I have managed to stay in constant touch with the women who have contributed to this collection – something that I could never have done in the old days of snail mail.
Neither Night nor Day
Thirteen stories by women writers from Pakistan
Edited by Rakhshanda Jalil
Harper Collins
Rs 250
Thirteen stories by women writers from Pakistan
Edited by Rakhshanda Jalil
Harper Collins
Rs 250
The most exciting thing about this anthology is its passionate introduction. Jalil states she has chosen these thirteen tales about the everyday lives of women in Pakistan because she believes that ‘by celebrating ordinariness we celebrate life as it is lived by scores of real people.”
Unfortunately, many of the writers included in this anthology have mistaken ordinary events for ordinary writing. The story for which the collection is named is at best trite, offering simplistic perspectives on what it’s like to be a Pakistani woman struggling with her identity in Britain. ‘I don’t care for marmite. But then, I also don’t care much for frying onions, the latest cut in shalwars or saas bahu soaps on Star Plus.’Soniah Kamal raises the bar with the book’s sixth story, The Breast, a riveting tale about a woman whose breast is about to be cut off for a crime she’s committed: nursing a stranger’s baby after her own baby girl was lost to infanticide. From hereon the collection vastly improves. Sorayya Khan artfully immortalizes the cruelties of Partition in Five Queen’s Street, in which an adolescent girl is frozen with fear as she watches the kidnap of her Hindu neighbor by an angry Muslim mob. Bina Shah’s heart-wrenching ‘The Wedding of Sundri’, a story set in pastoral Pakistan that culminates in the honor killing of a 12-year-old bride, leaves readers gasping for breath. Although offering an unadulterated glimpse of present-day Pakistan, the second half of this book ends up showing Indian readers that they still have much in common with their neighbors to the north.
Entry Filed under: Books, Literature, Pakistan, Writers. .
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Raza Rumi
iFaqeer
Aasem Bakhshi
yasserlatifhamdani
Lal Salam
cubano1
kinkminos
soniahkamal
temporal3
Fiza Ishaq
saadsultan
capedavenger
wateringhole
kashkin
1.
Qandeel | January 31, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Must buy this book!
And must pay Raza respect for promoting the female talents of Pakistan.
2.
Raza Rumi | January 31, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Qandeel
thanks!
I think we need to highlight these developments given that there are such few writers of note in Pakistan
cheers
3.
temporal3 | January 31, 2008 at 4:24 pm
soniah welcome to PTH
on your blog you have an interview with zulfikar ghose whom i know of as a poet first and a novelist later
is it possible to have a link to that interview?
4.
nuzhat | February 1, 2008 at 2:16 am
thanks Raza. This anthology also had a blurb in Tehelka.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ws020208Being.asp
I think there is some good writing coming out of Pakistan and/or by writers of Pakistani origin, and thankfully most of it is not about exotica and the identity crisis of Pakistani-Americans.
5.
Soniah Kamal | February 1, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Raza- you flatter me with this illustrious intro!
Temporal thanks for the welcome- I In regards to the Zulfiqar Ghose interview. The interview was conducted by Asif Farrukhi for Dawn newspaper, and I posted it in its entirety on the Desilit blog (and not my personal blog) because Dawn does not tend to keep archives (at least ones I can find)–so won’t be able to help you with a link. I will however do a cross post here of the interview.
Thnx again- I look forward to contributing to PTH.
6.
temporal | February 4, 2008 at 6:57 am
yes please do that
zulfikar is the most neglected of the pakistani writers
i met him once and questioned him on the spelling of his name…as most of us spell it as ghaus
he mentioned how his uncle mis-spelled it and he/they owed their lives to it…(the uncle had a shop in mumbai and during the partition riots the rioters thought it was a hindu shop and they spared it while the family huddled in fear in the apartment above the shop