HOW intriguing that at a time when English, with its status as a global language, is swaying South Asian literary minds, one seasoned English fiction writer settled in London has taken a jump in the ...

FASANA-I-AJAAIB, one of the Urdu’s most acclaimed specimens of ornate and embellished prose, was written in 1240 Hijri/1825 AD, though it was not until some 19 years later when it appeared in print.

Letters are now a nostalgic pastime. The “art of letter writing”, we call it wistfully, mostly because we detest the brief, auto-prompt sentences we write today. Poet Agha Shahid Ali, in his poem ...

Frenchman Julien Columeau came to Pakistan at the age of 30 as a humanitarian worker - but a knack for languages and love for books have made him one of the country's most innovative Urdu novelists.

Can literary festivals save Urdu, or do Imambaras keep it alive? This essay explores Muharram, oral traditions, and ...

I write a weekly column for this newspaper, an English language daily and at times it becomes difficult to comment on things with a perspective that is fresh, relevant and not dated — week after week.

‘Bibi’s room’ refers to the space of a woman which purportedly belongs to her but is never hers. Bibi (an affectionate form of address for a woman in Urdu) represents all women whose identity is often ...