Daily Times

Pakistan, which is the 36th largest country of the world in terms of area, was founded on August 14, 1947. Pakistan has always been an important necessity for world powers as it has been the target of many international conspiracies and a war zone for regional and global-powers.

Also, Pakistan has an abundance of talent. We have a pool of great talent in almost every field of life. The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah had great enthusiasm for sports and acknowledged that they play a vital role in the development of the nation. We have also produced tremendous literary figures, such as Ada Jaffri an Urdu poetess renowned as the first lady of Urdu poetry for her contemporary work and Ved Bhasin an English journalist known for his fearless journalism and firm stance on Kashmir. These are just a few amongst an ocean of talent emerging from Pakistan. We have all the credentials to ensure we are producing literary legends in the near future.

One young boy, in particular, has gained a considerable amount of recognition for his contribution to English literature. Meet 13-year-old Faizan Aslam Soofi hailing from Pakistan. He is one of the world’s youngest published writers marking his name in the fiction genre. He is an internationally acclaimed writer, his publicised novel Instrumental Queens has earned him recognition around the globe. His book has been selected to be placed in several prestigious libraries such as Harvard University and the Library of US Congress amongst others.

At the tender age of 10, Faizan Aslam Soofi completed his first 45,000-word fiction novel, achieving the position of the youngest published author in Pakistan and one of the youngest published authors in the world, possessing a talent that is rare not just amongst children but even adults

At the tender age of just 10, Faizan Aslam Soofi completed his first 45,000-word fiction novel, achieving the position of the youngest published author in Pakistan and one of the youngest published authors in the world, possessing a talent that is rare and not just amongst children but even adults. The creative young writer studies at Aitchison College prep school where his teachers describe him as an articulate writer. Faizan’s stories were presented to his principle and teachers who were immensely intrigued by his incredible writing talent and were curious to know whether the writing was, in fact, his own. Faizan’s mother is a graduate in English Literature and confirmed that she only made some minor editing and completely held the book in its original context and writing.

His teachers claim that he had begun writing short stories since the age of eight and his stories had previously been published in various newspapers.

“Faizan was encouraged by special citation given to him by Head Master Mr Amir Hussain when he wrote his first novella,” stated Faizan’s father.

An extract from his book Instrumental Queens,

“Black was her favourite colour. She loved it firstly because she loved the silent nights in her village punctuated by the chirping of the crickets, and she loved looking at the sky, the stars equidistant from each other. She had learned that it was very rare for the stars to be equidistant. Secondly, because darkness was so silent that she could think of new ideas and new things in abundance, without someone reading her thoughts by reading her face.”

An example of tremendous verbosity at the tender age of 10!

On his website, Faizan describes Instrumental Queens as, “Instrumental Queens was my second book ever. It was my first actual novel that I wrote, and it’s also my first series project. I started writing it at around when I first got my Dell laptop, which was somewhere around when I was nine. It was written first as a prequel to Instrumental Kings, which was written before, but it eventually came out as a full first book rather than just a prequel.”

While talking to Daily Times, Faizan stated, “I have authored three books. The fourth is currently under publishing process. I’ve loved writing, journaling, notebooks, and pens ever since I was a lot younger, and I started writing my first book when I was eight and the moment my fingers hit the keyboard and the cursor started moving across that Word Document, I knew I loved writing and I wanted to continue it. Writing is my passion and as cruel as this sound, I love it because it gives me the freedom to create and control. Currently, I’m focusing on four projects. I write them regularly, whatever I feel like every day. However, two of them are very, very secret, so I have decided to call them Secret Project 1 & 2.”

We look forward to reading more work from Faizan.

The writer is a law graduate and a home based translator at Lok Virsa Heritage Museum. She can be reached at zahra.ali.khan786@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, October 14^th 2017.