In conversation with Umber Khairi: Baya Benhassine

In her first novel, a taut newsroom thriller, “Akbar in Wonderland”, Umber delves into Akbar's life- a journalist in 1990's Karachi -who gets caught up with politics and media intrigues….

Umber Khairi - a 'Karachite’ herself- is a writer, columnist, former BBC producer, and co-founder of the independent, journalist-owned magazine ‘Newsline’. A graduate of Princeton University, she has worked as a journalist in Pakistan and the UK since the 1980s, and was a producer and radio broadcaster at the BBC World Service in London- for almost two decades. Her weekly column, ‘UK Calling’, has featured in The News on Sunday since 1998 and she contributes occasionally to other publications including ‘Dawn’, ‘Naya Daur’ and ‘The Circuit.’

She now runs a Lecture Series on journalism in partnership with the IBA's Center for Excellence in Journalism (CEJ).

'Poetry in English from Pakistan, A 21st Century Anthology' by Alhamra Publishing, showcases the work of sixty eight contemporary Pakistani poets writing in English. In this volume with its extensive representation of contemporary local and diaspora poets, readers will discern the changing trajectory in metre, rhythm, tone and theme of this often-neglected genre. The collection, featuring poems written from the year 2000 to date, moves from senior, established voices to young, emerging poets. The editor’s notes at the end of the book give novice readers a rough guide to English poetry in Pakistan, which existed from the country’s birth (and before, as part of the Subcontinent).

Readers familiar with the genre will note a recent return to traditional poetic form, a movement initiated by diaspora poets, now taken up by the local writing community. The large representation of the former group is testament to the scale of migrations westwards from Pakistan.

In scope and size, this twenty first century anthology endeavours to give students and readers of poetry an overview of the poetic scene and documentation of work which does not always reach publication!

'Poetry in English from Pakistan, A 21st Century Anthology' by Alhamra Publishing, showcases the work of sixty eight contemporary Pakistani poets writing in English. In this volume with its extensive representation of contemporary local and diaspora poets, readers will discern the changing trajectory in metre, rhythm, tone and theme of this often-neglected genre. The collection, featuring poems written from the year 2000 to date, moves from senior, established voices to young, emerging poets. The editor’s notes at the end of the book give novice readers a rough guide to English poetry in Pakistan, which existed from the country’s birth (and before, as part of the Subcontinent).

Readers familiar with the genre will note a recent return to traditional poetic form, a movement initiated by diaspora poets, now taken up by the local writing community. The large representation of the former group is testament to the scale of migrations westwards from Pakistan.

In scope and size, this twenty first century anthology endeavours to give students and readers of poetry an overview of the poetic scene and documentation of work which does not always reach publication!

'Between Africa, America and Pakistan, Heart Tantrums and Brain Tumors' is a unique story of identity and belonging, misogyny and motherhood, patriarchy and partnership. Its searing honesty and political passion reveal one woman's battle to redefine the rules--by fighting for, and sometimes with, the man she loves...

When Aisha Sarwari moved to America as a young woman, she set out to create her own identity and story. Born in Uganda, she had never lived in South Asia, yet struggled to reconcile the cultural expectation to be a "good Muslim girl" with her desire for equality and acceptance.
After she met Yasser, a Pakistani law student, they returned to their ancestral country and married. Little did they know that a brain tumor would become a near-lethal third wheel in their relationship. The cancer gnawed at Yasser's personality, provoking aggressive outbursts. Was the illness still the explanation for his violence, or had it become an excuse? Aisha began to see their marriage within a bigger picture--of an oppressive society, and of the tug between feminist principles and personal happiness...

'EVEN WHEN WE LEAVE THEM, OUR CITIES NEVER LEAVE US ...'

After her Dutch mother’s death, Sorayya Khan confronts her grief by revisiting their relationship, her parents’ lives, and her own Pakistani-Dutch heritage in a multicultural memoir that unfolds over seven cities and three continents.

We Take Our Cities with Us ushers us from Khan’s childhood independence forged at her grandparents’ home in Lahore; to her adolescence in Pakistan’s new capital, Islamabad; to Syracuse and Ithaca, New York, where Khan finds her footing as the mother of young, brown sons in post-9/11 America; to her birthplace, Vienna, where her parents die; and finally to Amsterdam and Maastricht, the cities of her mother’s conflicted youth.

In Khan’s gripping telling of her immigrant experience, she shows us what it is to raise children and lose parents in worlds other than your own. Drawing on family history, geopolitics, and art in this stunning story of loss, identity, and rediscovery, Khan beautifully illuminates the complexities of our evolving global world and its most important constant: love...

·With grace and power, this mesmerizing memoir swirls from continent to continent, decade to decade, through a journey of identity, memory, loyalty, and loss. Part map, part family tree, We Take Our Cities with Us provides an intimate glimpse into what it means to make a home in the global modern age. Sorayya Khan is an exquisite storyteller—Eleanor Henderson

·We Take Our Cities with Us is a memoir of uncommon delicacy and emotional force: Sorayya Khan illuminates her hybrid legacy and international upbringing, braiding the multiple threads of her complex identity. This is an intimate, beautiful, and lasting book—Claire Messud

·This is a rich, wise, deeply moving reflection on cities that are both home to migrants and themselves migrants, having morphed into barely recognizable versions of their former selves. The ghosts of other times and places haunt the characters in this memoir. Sometimes that haunting is a reminder of what has been lost forever, but sometimes it can also be a consolation: even as our passports root us in one place, our curiosities, loves, and longings can make unexpected connections across supposedly insurmountable borders.—Jonathan Gil Harris

The programme will include short readings of We Take Our Cities with Us, and Sorayya will join us with pre-recorded remarks on her journey from novelist to memoirist and will offer us a glimpse into a writer's research process.

• Sorayya Khan is the author of We Take Our Cities with Us: A Memoir and three novels: Noor, Five Queen's Road, and City of Spies, which won the Best International Fiction Book Award at the Sharjah International Book Fair.

Hidden Caliphate, Sufi Saints beyond the Oxus and Indus (Harvard University Press) [local publishing by Sang-e-Meel, exp Dec 2023]

Having conducted fieldwork across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, in 140 towns and villages, often living with religious communities in the Afghan-Pakistan border areas- Waleed Ziad -In his path breaking book, tells the story of Central and South Asia through the lens of transnational Sufi networks from the 18th century onwards, offering a vital new perspective on a region long understood only through European imperial histories.

This work is therefore essential in not only reframing our understanding of the history of Pakistan and its neighbors, but tracing how the region transformed from a cosmopolitan center with a flexible religious tradition into a breeding ground for exclusionary, monolithic interpretations of Islam...

Fusing social history, religious studies, and anthropology to offer a new vision of Islamic sovereignty, where a Hidden Caliphate of Sufis provided order in times of political upheaval and fragmentation, Ziad shows how Asia was knit together by networks of Sufis centered in Pakistan and Afghanistan’s chief cities- Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, and Bukhara- as pivot points of Eurasia where a host of knowledge systems, spiritual and scholastic networks and nationalities blended.

"Always misrepresented by colonial actors, these Sufis known as the Naqshbandi-Mujaddidis, were the major force of military, social, and ideological resistance against the British and Soviet invasions through the 19th and 20th centuries and their influence is still felt today across the Muslim world. They, fused Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Indian literary traditions, mystical virtuosity, popular religious practices, and urban scholasticism in a unified yet flexible expression of Islam. They brought cohesion to diverse Muslim communities from Punjab to the Central Asian steppes and Siberia..."

Awards

• Albert Hourani Prize, the most prestigious prize in Middle Eastern Studie (through the Middle East Studies Association),
• The American Institute of Pakistan Studies book award 2023

Shortlisted

• British Association for South Asian Studies, 2023 -Book Award.
• The Bloomsbury Pakistan 2022 Book Award

Reviews can be found at:

Hidden Caliphate — Waleed Ziad | Harvard University Press

In conversation with Zahid Hussain...

In His introduction to the book, journalist Ghazi Salahuddin states, 'In a larger perspective, Zahid Hussain's interviews of Benazir Bhutto that he had done for the news monthlies Herald and Newsline,underline the essential role that journalism plays in the compilation and understanding of history...'

The story begins in 1986 when Benazir Bhutto returned home to lead her party's struggle against the military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq and ends in her tragic assassination in 2007. Zahid Hussain enjoyed a long association with Benazir Bhutto as a journalist and got the rare opportunity to observe her political journey up close.

'Face to Face with Benazir' is a compilation of interviews of the late Benazir Bhutto ( twice-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan) published in the Herald and Newsline magazines from 1986 to 2002. They provide rare insights into Benazir's thoughts and struggles during her tumultuous life.

Zahid Husain is an award- winning journalist and author. A former correspondent of Times of London and the Wall Street Journal, he has authored several books including 'Frontline Pakistan', 'The Scorpion's Tail' and 'No Win War- the paradox of US- Pakistan relations in Afghanistan's Shadow' .

'Face to Face with Benazir' is his latest offering!

In conversation with Yasser Latif Hamdani, a Human Right's barrister and Advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan.

How did the leader of the All-India Muslim League become the figurehead of the creation of a separate independant country for Muslims? And what are the roots of the different facets of Jinnah’s personality, steely determination, and political views, including secularism?

With his book “Jinnah- A Life”, Yasser Latif Hamdani presents a thoroughly researched biography of Muhamed Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan and a central figure in recent history of South Asia and the shaping of the Sub Continent.

This comprehensive and well-documented biography based on new material gives insights into of Jinnah’s life that cristallized him as the central figure in the recent history of South Asia and the shaping of the sub-continent .

Hamdani in his book, explores how Jinnah’s early life and life events shaped his complex personality. His unshakable will and determination to achieve his goals and his gradual shift from being a staunch nationalist advocating for the protection of Muslim rights and achieving greater political influence for Muslims inside an independant India, to demanding the creation of separate Muslim state in 1947...

Non- Members: For further information contact ASG Office: 051-2802343 Thursday- Saturday : 11 am- 2 pm

In Conversation...

Javier Moro, is a highly acclaimed Spanish author . Several of his books are set in the subcontintent (Five Past Midnight in Bhopal, Passion India etc.). Amonst his well- known books is 'The Red Sari'- a biography of Sonia Gandhi- The conversation tonight will feature insights on the writer's subjects, method and writing career, which almost began in Pakistan !

Javier Moro is the nephew of Dominique LaPierre, co author of Freedom at Midnight, who initiated him into the craft of narrative non fiction.

A conversation with Dr. Fouzia Saeed about her book on women who have made their mark on the history of Pakistan, offering glimpses of the dominant social and political trends in the country’s past. As she states in the preface: “My goal has been to trace the history of our women’s struggle so we can understand it better and be proud of the risks our forbearers took to give us a better life … we should all own the history of our struggle so we can take it forward with pride.”

“I have always felt I was a women’s rights activist. This was never my profession, just a conviction, a yearning to improve my life and try to help other women of Pakistan...”

Dr. Saeed has spent over 30 years working for social change in Pakistan. She has a PhD from the University of Minnesota, USA, and has distinguished herself as a social activist, a development professional, a successful manager as well as an accomplished scholar. She has written five books, all the while also creating Pakistan’s first women’s crisis centre and successfully advocating for the passage of several laws protecting and empowering women.