Adil Najam
We at ATP like books. Over the last many months we have featured and discussed a number of books that relate to Pakistan in various ways.
I must confess that I had always hoped that we would talk more about books than we have. I hope we will be able to do so in the future. As a step towards that goal, we would like to invite our readers to share with us your suggestions of books on Pakistan that are worth reading.
This is not a popularity contest. We have no awards to give. We merely want to collate a list of books on Pakistan that people consider to be interesting reads. Specially those that you would consider recommending to others for whatever reason.
We have only two criteria:
- First, that the books you suggest must be about Pakistan, and significantly so. We, of course, realize that many Pakistanis read many books that are not about Pakistan, but the focus of this blog is not only on ‘All’ Things Pakistan, but also ‘Only’ things about Pakistan.
- Second, for the purpose of this first exercise please restrict your suggestions to books in the English language. This is a pragmatic, and not an ideological, criteria. The universe of books in Urdu is much larger - especially when one includes works of fiction and poetry - and hopefully we will have a separate exercise on those. For now, we wish to start small by focusing only on English language books.
The plan right now is to make this post and list a standing feature and to keep adding to it as readers share their suggestions and ideas. Hopefully this will be a useful service to those interested in Pakistan and Pakistaniat.
The new book on Lahore by Dawn columnist Majid Sheikh. Forget the name sadly. Fascinating history.
Three Cups of Tea is the most thought-provoking, emotion-wrenching, inspiring book I’ve read in ages.
I do much enjoy Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid, I truly believe it to be one of the best works of contemporary Pakistani fiction. Another wonderful book is Bolitho’s Biography of Jinnah. I found it to be more objective and better written than the other biography’s out there.
I would highly recommend both of these, but if anyone could recommend some other books, perhaps in Urdu that are worth getting into, that might be valuable as well.
Keep Reading and Writing,
FHM
I would also ad Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh
Emma Duncan’s Breaking The Curfew is easily the best book I’ve read on the country.
I’d add Stanley Wolpert’s “Zulfi of Pakistan” to this list. Now what about Urdu books??
@ Adil:
Will it be too much to ask,at the end of this exercise, for a list of ‘Essential Pakistan’ reading? For a non-Pakistani (I’m Indian).
I suspect you will have better ideas than me in drawing up the list.
The reason this would help: those of us not immersed in Pakistan may not have the time or inclination to plough through a variety of books and mine for the gold. While one inevitably loses something in the process of reading only a small set of books, a trustworthy list of books would be a good practical start.
I also think some of the best thought/understanding may be in Urdu books. But till some great person does worthy translations, this will have to do.
My own interest is histori/socio/political books.
Adil, I like the warning meant for sharartee log :) in the comments section
3 books on english verse and 4 book-sets on Sufi poets by Muzaffar A Ghaffar; the ones on shah hussain and bullay shah are amazing. i also love Faiz’s select poems & ghazals translated by V. Kiernan. Then there are coffee table books like the ones on Mehdi Hasan & Tufail Niazi printed by Pak Arab Refinery containing a 2-CD set of their best work