Pakistan’s unexpectedly rich English literary evolution

Huma Kirmani

 

August 17, 2018

 

 

The development of English literature in Pakistan evolved its own identity and has become the socio-cultural document of an era of aspirations and austerity for the past seventy years. Authors have a third eye which venerates curiosity, inspiration, imagination, where seeing is a synecdoche and synesthetic gerund. The disbandment of the British throne in the Subcontinent in 1947, and the accompanying mass migration across the new borders between the newly independent states of India and Pakistan, stands out as one of the momentous developments in socio-cultural history.

 

It subsequently categorized issues of class, community formation, ideological fissures and cultural separatism, however with the absence of women and ordinary people playing any role. In the post-1947 inception of Pakistani English literature, authors tried to hold their ground for the leftist and liberal issues of class and people, in a discourse which simply portrayed a pivotal and exclusive role in the literary backdrop for novels of partition horrors. However, these historical accounts never acquired the discipline of art and no literature based on hate and prejudice can be great.

Some more on Salima Hashmi's latest book .....

.... and nice to see that our thought leaders are moving away from stereotyping ......

"To think ‘Pakistan’ is to think of its turbulent history and the violence it endures with alarming regularity even today. So, it is a departure from norm when it barely resurfaces in a conversation with Salima Hashmi, Pakistani artist and editor of The Eye Still Seeks."



Source: Mid Day (for all text and images)

Today, in search of Pakistan

By Kareena Gianani |Posted 22-Feb-2015

A new book looks at contemporary art in Pakistan, which reflects the country’s turbulent, provocative relationship with its political and social fabric, writes Kareena Gianani

Even before a reader could run her finger down the contents of the book, The Eye Still Seeks, which looks at Pakistan’s contemporary art scene, she is greeted by an artwork of a cherubic child, barely three, holding a pistol. His glee is unmistakable, as is the background in artist Faiza Butt’s artwork, splattered with scenes of violence.


An artwork by Pakistani contemporary artist Faiza Butt. (Below, L-R) Some eclectic artwork by Hamra Abbas and artist Salman Toor

To think ‘Pakistan’ is to think of its turbulent history and the violence it endures with alarming regularity even today. So, it is a departure from norm when it barely resurfaces in a conversation with Salima Hashmi, Pakistani artist and editor of The Eye Still Seeks.

Pakistan and surprises
To the naked eye, The Eye Still Seeks is about Pakistani contemporary artists’ experiments with a range of media such as digital, video, sculpture, painting and installations. But, look deeper, and these are experiments with naked truth. Religion, gender and politics are as unmistakable as colours mixed together, as if never to be separated from Pakistan’s fabric. Yet, when Hashmi began curating this book, she had her eye on only one idea — what are Indians curious about when it comes to Pakistani art? She decided not to pay much heed to the oft-discussed what-is-common-between-Indian-and-Pakistani-art question. “Indian and Pakistani Modernists had much in common. In fact, Indian artist SH Raza’s younger brother is a Pakistani artist. But this commonality wasn’t of interest to me, because it is Pakistan’s contemporary art which is bold and holds more surprises for the world,” says Hashmi over a telephone call from Lahore.


Artist and writer Salima Hashmi

The Eye Still Seeks takes a refreshing approach — it has Pakistan’s best fiction writers writing about artists they admire, looking into their work and then looking inward to place the art in personal and political context. So, Kamila Shamsie writes on Naiza Hasan’s art, while Mohsin Hamid writes a beautiful meditation on the work of Rashid Rana. Another experiment is one wherein artists and partners Aisha Kahled and Imran Qureshi explore their works in a conversation. “My initial idea was to get Pakistan’s political scientists to write, but none of them were interested in art. That’s when I hit upon this idea, because they are such relevant parallels —crisscrossing Pakistan’s fiction and art. I selected authors who are not only interested in art, but could also articulate why the artists they chose resonate with them,”  says Hashmi.

So Lounge: New age Pakistan - New Art Book

Unlike a lot of other countries, Pakistan, by no stretch of imagination, has witnessed an 'excess' of art books. So a publication of a new art book is nearly a story in itself in the land of the pure. On top, add Salima Hashmi's name to a book and it becomes a 'must see'. 'The Eye Still Seeks' seems to extend its scope and importance even beyond that.
 

 

Visual beauty combined with the beauty of the word

 

Apart from the normal coverage of the contemporary art scene in the country, the book has beautifully combined some of the best visual artists in the country with the leading literary figures of the country. Mohsin Hamid has written on Rashid Rana's work, Kamila Shamsie on Naiza Khan's and Mohammad Hanif on Asim Butt's.

 

For those amongst us, who enjoy both visual beauty as well as the beauty of the word ...... this is a double treat indeed !

 

Enjoy !

 

 

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So Lounge: New age Pakistan

 

A lavishly-produced book on the contempoary art scene in the country  

Elizabeth Kuruvilla

Source: Livemint

          

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Faiza Butt’s Between Me And Yourself

 

 

There’s little serenity in contemporary art by Pakistani artists. In a country that has seen turbulence in both its political and social worlds since its very birth, the artists’ responses have been courageous, provocative even.

The Eye Still Seeks—Pakistani Contemporary Art: Edited by Salima Hashmi, Penguin Studio, 303 pages, Rs 4,999

 

 

As artist, critic and curator Quddus Mirza says in his write-up on artist Adeela Suleman, “the acts of violence are… deep- rooted in our ideas, psyches and selves”. That is what one sees in the works that have been published in this coffee-table book edited by artist and teacher Salima Hashmi (also, incidentally, the daughter of poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz).

 

The writings that accompany the images of artworks are a great introduction to Pakistani art in its most vibrant phase—there is Kamila Shamsie on Naiza Khan, Mohsin Hamid on Rashid Rana, Mohammed Hanif on Asim Butt and the provocative language of graffiti art, a recorded conversation between artists and partners Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid which touches, among other things, on domesticity and keeping the artist’s ego aside in their marriage, and Nafisa Rizvi on the hugely influential output of female artists.

 

This book was conceived along with a Pakistan contemporary art show in Delhi that has now been “indefinitely postponed”. The book is a reminder that that time has to come soon.