“Writing from Extreme Edges”:Pakistani English-Language Fiction

In 2000, Shafiq Naz founded Alhamra, a small press in Islamabad, Pakistan. Driven by Naz's desire to contribute to the modest publishing industry in Pakistan, on the decline since the 1960s and 1970s, and by his love for languages and literatures, Alhamra publishes primarily fiction in English and also reprints books in English and Urdu. In addition to publishing critical work edited by Alamgir Hashmi and the short fiction of Tariq Rahman, two well-established names in Pakistani letters, the press's most distinguishing feature is its commitment to publishing emerging writers from Pakistan. Naz sees value in publishing new writers, such as Bina Shah, Sehba Sarwar, and Sorayya Khan, all of whom have been educated and/or reside outside of Pakistan. These new literary voices, Naz contends, are attracting a younger generation of Pakistani readers who have an interest in contemporary literature written in English. In 2006, Alhamra established the Alhamra Literary Review, which, according to the press's website, means "to showcase new and emerging literary talent in and of Pakistan, as well as to introduce its audience to established figures in Pakistani literature through translations and excerpts from great works." The press has plans to publish the Review annually. Alhamra's Pakistani audience for its English-language production is, as far as the press can determine, made up of educated people with an age range of 20-40. The age of Alhamra's readership means that, in terms of Pakistani history, these readers were born after Partition and, most, after the 1971 civil war that resulted in Bangladeshi independence. The audience's age is significant for obvious reasons: here are two generations of readers who articulate Pakistani identities that draw upon the country's past after independence and upon its multi-ethnic present (Naz). (1) While there is a growing audience in Pakistan for such literature itself, Naz observes that, in terms of distribution of Alhamra's English-language fiction outside of Pakistan, publishers in Europe and America "aren't really interested because these stories [published by Alhamra] don't really fit their concepts of Pakistan." The sort of thing that may catch a non-Pakistani's eye, in Naz's estimation, would in reality be sensational, reductive, and stereotypical: In America and the Anglo-Saxon world, the problem is that people have certain ideas and preconceptions about Pakistan, about Islam. ... Anything that is negative, anything that would corroborate what they think about a certain society, that would interest them. They are not really interested in portraying the society as it is with its negative and with its positive. This assessment shows how difficult it is to gauge international marketability. Publishing in English does not automatically guarantee a global audience. (2) Further, taking into account Naz's estimation of what does appeal to non-Pakistani audiences, Pakistani literature in English may not (or no longer) inherently or even self-consciously mirror colonial sensibilities simply because these works are written in English. If such is the case, then English as a medium of creative composition may produce a literature that does more than perpetuate a colonial mindset. Naz's assessment of the press's audience for and authors of English-language writings suggests such literature occupies an "emerging" position within Pakistan. At the same time, English-language literature by Pakistani authors, particularly those of a younger generation, barely registers on the radar screens of the international literary field referred to as "world/new literatures in English." In light of this doubly tenuous position, Muneeza Shamsie argues that Pakistani authors "choosing English as their creative medium ... write from the extreme edges of both English and Pakistani literature" (Changed xiv). (3) It is precisely the tenuousness of Pakistani English-language literature's position both within Pakistan and throughout the broader anglophone world that I examine in this article. …