Daily Times

AND DEATH WALKS WITH THEM – ABOVE EIGHT THOUSAND METRES WITH PAKISTANI PORTERS FROM SHIMSHAL BY CHRISTIANE FLADT

The author intends to throw light on the uncelebrated lives of some of Pakistan’s High Altitude Porters, who help mountaineers climb the Pakistan-based eight-thousand-metre peaks. The author has attempted to delve into their lives by digging out adventure and drama in their stories, which makes her work a significant contribution to the literature available on this topic. This book will be the first to record the names of the porters alongside those of the more wealthy climbers who hired them.

KICKING UP DUST BY AZRA ABBAS

This book, which is a biography of the author, very skilfully presents a picture of her childhood, juxtaposing childish playfulness with the realities of the urban middle class she lived in. The prose is engrossing because it presents a child’s candid and forthright perspective of the society she is part of. The curiosity of a rebellious child forced to survive in the adult world provides insight for the readers into the mind of a child forced to grow up before her time. A number of the author’s poems, also translated by Samina Rahman, are included in this volume.

THE THREE INNOCENTS & ORS – CHUGHTAI ON CHILDHOOD BY ISMAT CHUGHTAI

Ismat Chughtai is one of the most renowned Urdu writers of the 20th century in the subcontinent. A prolific writer, she has authored several collections of short stories, novellas, novels, a collection of reminiscences and essays. This work is a delightful anthology that offers a rare glimpse into the lesser-known aspects of Ismat Chughtai’s writing—the warmth, humour and affection with which she writes on her childhood. Shedding all of the certainties of an adult, she steps into a child’s shoes, looks upon the world with an unjaundiced eye and presents us with scrapes, situations and sentiments that are refreshing in their candour. This is Chughtai at her disarming best.

URDU POETRY, 1935–1970 – THE PROGRESSIVE EPISODE BY CARLO COPPOLA

This book attempts to determine the nature and meaning of the term ‘progressivism’ and assess its significance in the larger context of Urdu literature and, ultimately, South Asian literature. It investigates the emergence of the Progressive Movement in the subcontinent along with the indigenous and foreign influences: literary, historical, intellectual, and philosophical which set the stage for the Progressive Movement. Contrary to the belief held by some critics that the progressive movement was mostly if not entirely, derived from English and Russian sources and influences, this study indicates that strong indigenous elements contributed equally, if not more, to the movement.

CITYSCAPES OF VIOLENCE IN KARACHI – PUBLICS & COUNTERPUBLICS EDITED BY NICHOLA KHAN

Karachi is a city framed in the popular imagination by violence, be it criminality and gangsterism or political factionalism. By commenting in different ways on the trials and tribulations of Karachi and Pakistan, the contributors to this innovative book on the city build on past writings to say something new or different—to enable the reader to re-think how they understand the processes at work in this vast urban space. They scrutinise Karachi’s diverse neighbourhoods to show how violence is manifested locally and citywide in protest drinking, social and religious movements, class and cosmopolitanism, gang wars, and how it affects the fractured lives of militants and journalists, among others. Oral history and memoir feature strongly, as do insights gleaned from anthropology and political science.

Published in Daily Times, July 25^th 2017.