Round up, ‘23

Mehvash Amin

Editor-in-chief, The Aleph Review

Lately, I have been re-reading some old favourites, books of poetry in particular, to see if any one of them touches on the subject that has subsumed me for the last three months – the Palestine genocide. I cannot think of anything else, so anything I might have read BG (Before Genocide) I either do not recall or have relegated to some region of the brain that I will visit only when this horror has ended.

I picked up Taufiq Rafat’s Arrival of the Monsoon and came across this poem. I cannot quote it fully, but here I present some of it:

Israel

Belsen stuck in their craw.

They vomited in Auschwitz.

Dachau moved them to tears.

So for the sin of their enemies

the good allies decided

to give the Jews a homeland.

Penalizing Germany

By carving out a portion of it

Would have been too just;

And too humdrum to cede them Alaska

Which nobody wanted.

It was ice-cold anyway.

The only thing that remained

Was to turn back history thousands

Of years.

That was it! It was truly Christian

To give them Palestine,

sunny Palestine.

This book was published in 1985 and bought for a mere hundred rupees. I then picked up Leonard Cohen’s Selected Poems, 1956-1868. One snippet talks of how the most horrific of acts can be buried in the every day or the carnal, as here:

I know that outside a war is raging

that you issue orders

that babies are smothered and generals beheaded

but blood means nothing to me

it does not disturb your flesh

Thus, I made an effort to come to terms with a present horror with the words of past poets, their words tinged with a prescience insight and bluntness that only poets can lay claim to.

Mahmood Awan

Dublin-based Punjabi poet

Anup Singh’s Irrfan: Dialogues with the wind was my top read of the year. Anup Singh is a Geneva-based film director who directed Irrfan Khan for his films Qissa: The tale of a lonely ghost (2013) & The Song of Scorpions (2017). Anup is a Punjabi with roots in Rawalpindi from where his ancestors migrated to Africa. This book is flow of memories, celebrating the art and life of much-loved Indian actor Irrfan Khan (1967 – 2020). I read the book and watched both of Anup’s movies again to fully comprehend the nuances and the complex world of behind-the-scenes conversations & emotions. Anup details Irrfan’s thorough and challenging approach to each subject he ever picked up, his elegance and intellect. The one who, through his sheer performance, can make us see a spiritual flame even in a demon. He tells us that Irrfan was in love with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Sahab’s voice and music and it was NFAK whose music became an opening door to deeper conversations between them. Irrfan once said to him: “Who can stay unhappy listening to Nusrat Sahib?”. Anup describes silences, spaces, hesitations and pauses that made Irrfan Khan the performer, part of the audience and vice versa. Anup’s poetic text, like his reader’s heart, at times, gets filled with a deep sense of loss and longing: “The room I told you about, with the window that opens above a cherry tree, awaits you. Come.”

Malik Mehr Ali’s book of Punjabi short stories titled Dhaa laggi Wasti (A slowly degenerating town) was my re-read of the year. It was published in 2007 and I got a chance to read it again during 2023. Punjabi had many dialects and the one dialect that is the backbone of the Punjabi literary and cultural landscape is the one spoken in the baar areas. Mehr Ali’s book was composed in an aboriginal native dialect that captures the tone and texture of the Ganji and Neeli baar areas. Malik employs colloquial expression and oral narrative techniques with symbolic twists to expose social issues of a deteriorating value system. Using contrasting symbols of lights and shadows, despair and hope, the dejected native of Chak Adhay Kay Saghlay brings us face to face with the ugliness that has destroyed the very fabric of the entire social and cultural eco-system. His stories remain as relevant as ever for the people of the land who seem permanently stuck in a filthy dark abyss. In the words of the great Hafiz Barkhurdar, who had warned us centuries ago: Hunn ki Karreay Hafzaa Dhaa laggi Darya.

Safinah Danish Elahi

Publisher, writer Eye on the Prize and Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon

2023 was a heavy year for all of us. There has been so much chaos that focusing on things that otherwise seem to take up so much of our time was difficult. However, I found solace in a few books that spoke to me and impacted me, and at times just made me forget the unforgiving nature of conflict around the world. Books I enjoyed:

American Fever by Dure Amna Aziz: I particularly liked Dure’s writing because I resonated with many things she speaks about, being foreign yet being right at home, wanting freedom but at the expense of being different. I was a part of the Iowa Writers Residency last year, and although my experience was professional rather than educational, her ways of expression spoke to me.

Adrenalin by Ghayath Al Madhoun: Ghayath was with me at the residency, and while I read his work while I was in the US, with the current conflict, I re-read some of his poems that hit home with the grief I have been feeling. Not only is his poetry stunning, but it’s incredibly graphic and raw and shows how displacement and residing in a continuous state of war does to those living through it.

Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka: I’ve read only a few books in my life that are as well written as this one. It is satire, it’s serious, and it sheds light on the state of Sri Lankan politics in a manner that is both hilarious and gruelling.

Tomorrow, tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin: I read this book for a book club, and thought I wouldn’t enjoy a book about gaming since I’ve hardly ever gamed in my life. Surprisingly, it was refreshing and, in fact, fascinating.

YellowFace by Rebecca Kuang: This book deep dives into the writing and publishing industry like no other. While some parts of it may have been far-fetched, I could relate to how Kuang describes the anxieties around publishing and how the success and failure of a book are almost preplanned.

Sabyn Javeri

Writer, Ways of Being - an anthology of Pakistani Women's Creative Non-Fiction

Now that 2024 is at our doorstep, the pandemic seems a distant memory. But with the humanitarian crisis in Palestine, one can’t help but recall how fragile life is. Just like it’s hard to believe we are witnessing a terrible genocide, it’s hard to believe that we have lived through a plague. As always, literature captures the truth that reports and records cannot. Although I’m currently reading literature by Palestinian authors, earlier this year, the three novels that impacted me most indirectly tried to capture the isolation of the pandemic.

The early days of Covid-19, when the world transformed into a stage of obscured identities, hidden behind surgical masks, challenging our notions of connection and recognition, sets the backdrop for Deborah Levy's masterful novel, August Blue. In this novel, Levy invites us to reflect on the complexities of human connection in times of isolation, making it a compelling read for those who seek depth and introspection through fiction. Levy’s protagonist, Elsa Anderson, a concert pianist, encounters a woman adorned with a blue hospital mask in a flea market. This stranger, engaged in the simple act of bargaining at a stall, unwittingly ignites a fire of desire and intrigue in Elsa. The obscured visage of this woman casts a spell of mystery, leading Elsa to ponder if this encounter is with a stranger or, more intriguingly, with a mirrored version of herself. It's a dance of identity and alterity, elegantly choreographed by Levy's deft storytelling.

Rachel Cusk's novel Second Place is another such work of fiction that subtly explores how our emotional landscape was reshaped during the worldwide lockdowns. As Cusk blurs the lines between autobiography and invention, she invites readers into a world where traditional boundaries are challenged, offering a fresh perspective on the gendered experience of freedom during the pandemic. The story begins with the narrator, the owner of a large property with an annexe, inviting an artist to use it as a kind of retreat, or, as she puts it, “a home for the things that weren’t already here – the higher things”. The novel's setting becomes a microcosm of the isolation experienced worldwide. Characters grapple with their inner selves, reflecting the widespread experience of individuals being confined to their homes. This introspection is heightened by the limited social interactions within the novel, mirroring the reduced physical contact people experienced during lockdown. The emotional investments in one's space resonate with the pandemic-induced shift in how individuals perceive their homes and personal environments when the pandemic turned homes into multifunctional spaces – offices, schools, sanctuaries – forcing a redefinition of personal and emotional boundaries. Through its exploration of gender norms and the struggle for personal control, the narrative powerfully captures the tension between the desire for freedom and the constraints of societal expectations, particularly in terms of property and personal space.

Lastly, Disturbances by Jenna Clark, an atmospheric novel about a young woman coming out of an abusive relationship, explores the psychological effects of isolation and the process of healing in seclusion. The protagonist's encounters with the supernatural in her flat can be likened to the heightened sense of anxiety and detachment that many people who found themselves working from home, living without family, and cut off from all social interaction must have felt during the pandemic. The novel cleverly plays on the feelings of the house as it takes on the role of a character in the absence of other people and explores the mental health challenges that people faced during that time.

All three narratives explore themes of human resilience and adaptation, highlighting how people navigated through adversity, showing the strength of the human spirit and the capacity to find hope in the most challenging times. The pandemic may be over, but the struggle to find genuine human connection remains. Ironically, it is this ‘Human Condition’, that of all people, Hannah Arendt explored through the balancing of 'vita activa' or the active with the 'vita contemplativa,' the contemplative life, that we still seem to be searching for. Here’s hoping 2024 brings peace and puts an end to the wars in the world and within us.

Taha Kehar

Writer, No Funeral for Nazia

In previous years, the books I read bore distinct thematic similarities. Mercifully, 2023 awakened the rebel within me and I found myself drawn towards a disparate array of texts. I revisited Khaled Hosseini's oeuvre in the initial months of the year while writing an encyclopedia entry on the Afghan-American novelist. Upon closer reading, And the Mountains Echoed came across as a haunting evocation of Afghanistan's gradual descent into chaos. With its ambitious scope, the novel stands out as a paean to a lost world and a poignant reminder of the scars left by decades-long strife.

I approached R. F Kuang's Yellowface with some measure of suspicion as I'd been told that it presented a fairly simplistic view of the publishing world in the West. But, even so, this satirical novel provided a doorway towards understanding how professional hostilities can damage friendships between writers.

Following the escalation of the Israel-Palestine crisis in October, I gravitated towards the translated works of Palestinian authors who had used the ink-and-paper route to capture the invisible traumas associated with the dispute. In an increasingly divisive political climate, Adania Shibli's Minor Detail provided sizzling insights into the human costs of an intergenerational conflict. I read Shibli's novel alongside Palestinian author Sheikha Helawy's They Fell Like Stars from the Sky. Through a string of evocative stories, Helawy reclaims her Bedouin identity and showcases the lives of Palestinian girls and women who find themselves on the spiritual and emotional fringes of a patriarchal world. It is rare to find an author who can portray the personal struggles of a people ravaged by war and colonial impulses.

A few years ago, I vowed to reread - albeit at a slow, enriching pace - at least one novel by Anita Desai every year. This year, I chose Desai's Fasting, Feasting, which I had read in my early twenties. Even after all these years, Desai's portrayal of the South Asian nuclear family as an oppressive institution appears terrifyingly true.

Saba Karim Khan

Writer, Skyfall

When 2023 began, I remember telling myself that I’d try for this to be one of those uncommon years where I actually read most of the books I had bought or been gifted instead of simply stacking them on my already inundated bookshelf! Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It by Jennifer Breheny Wallace shaped a huge part of my headspace this year, compelling me to reflect, especially as a parent, on how to mindfully opt out of the rat race when it comes to raising children. How does one instill drive and verve without stretching schedules to a breaking point and compromising mental health and well-being? Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, gifted to me by Christian Stüer, was another game-changer; backed by persuasive empirical discoveries to debunk prevailing myths, it illustrates how significant sleep is in our lives, offering pragmatic tools for achieving better results with night rest – definitely a keeper and one I find myself regularly referring to.

I also gravitated towards Urdu prose this year, something I’ve revelled in since school, finding Ismat Chughtai’s short story, Chauthi ka Jora, just as heart-wrenching today as I had when I’d first read it. Manto’s soul-stirring story, Sau Gandhi, recommended to me by revered filmmaker Sarmad Sultan Khoosat, was another treasure trove, wounding and emboldening in equal measure. My husband and I experienced Cricket in Pakistan by Dr Ali Khan together, an educational and incisive unpacking of how cricket enjoys the status of a religion in Pakistan, mirroring corruption, culture and chaos.

With fiction in English, I found myself immersed in the poignant world of The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, a story of the bond between siblings and how a place can become the protagonist. Amongst my most gritty and evocative page-turner reads this year was The Party Worker by Omar Shahid Hamid; suffice it to say, I’m a fan! Finally, what brought me the greatest joy in books in 2023 were the children’s books I read with my girls – especially Zen Shorts by John J Muth, with its watercolour and ink drawings and incredibly smart storytelling technique, as well as the radical children’s series, Just Jessica, by Australian Paralympian Jessica Smith. Now hoping to enter 2024, carrying with me the momentum, flow and thrill of reading that piqued my curiosity this past year, starting with Booker winner Prophet Song.

Awais Khan

Writer, Someone Like Her

Despite being a writer of mainly literary fiction, I somehow veer towards crime thrillers when it comes to reading. 2023 has been an excellent year for the genre, with some pretty amazing books published. While Yellowface by RF Kuang isn’t technically crime, it does read like a thriller and offers a much-needed expose on publishing. As far as crime thrillers are concerned, I enjoyed The Book Club Murders by Alan Gorevan. A seasoned crime writer, he returned this year with a kickass thriller. The Final Party from popular thriller author AA Chaudhuri fulfilled my requirement for a classic, fast-paced destination thriller, while One by Eve Smith emerged as one of my favourite books of the year. Set in the not-too-distant future, when Britain has introduced a one-child policy, this is a literary thriller like no other. Absolutely unputdownable. Killer Bodies by Heleen Kist was another gripping, locked-room mystery I enjoyed, while The Smuggler’s Apprentice by Lachlan Page was an immensely satisfying and quirky spy novella.

Anyone who knows me would know that I am a huge fan of Russian history, particularly the life and times of Tsar Nicholas II. I’ve devoured every single book I’ve been able to find on the subject, and this year, I was lucky to come across The Romanov Empress by CW Gortner, which offers an in-depth look into the world of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, the mother to the last Tsar. I enjoyed it immensely and I am sure that it will appeal to fans of historical fiction too. Being a huge fan of historical fiction, I enjoyed reading The Nightingale’s Castle, the riveting new novel from Sonia Velton and The Fascination by Essie Fox, an utterly immersive gothic extravaganza. The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell was another haunting story about the strange marriage between Alfonso and Lucrezia.

I also had the opportunity to read Once Upon a Time in Uppsala, an unforgettable memoir from Shirin Amani Azari about an Iranian girl coming of age in Sweden. Beautifully written, it kept me thinking long after I’d turned the final page.

All in all, 2023 was an interesting year for books and I am lucky to have read so many gems.

Sara Naveed

Writer, Undying Affinity and The Cold Heart

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak was a mesmerising and heart-wrenching read. It delves into themes of forbidden love, identity, war's toll on people, partition, religion, love, loss, grief, and migration. The incredible narrative, voiced by a fig tree, was particularly intriguing. I never expected to be drawn to a tree! It's an impactful story from Shafak, one I highly recommend.

RF Kuang's Yellowface stands out as top-tier literary drama fiction. It held me captivated until the final page, skilfully portraying the complex world of publishing – a cut-throat industry. The challenges of making a name for oneself within this industry are vividly depicted by Kuang, offering a beautiful and insightful narrative.

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry is fantastic! If you're a fan of friends-to-lovers romance, this book is a must-read. Henry's storytelling prowess shines through, painting a vivid and heartfelt journey of two characters navigating the complexities of friendship and love. The chemistry between the protagonists feels palpable, drawing readers into their story with every turn of the page.

Happy Place by Emily Henry had been my most anticipated book of 2023, yet it didn't quite reach the same level of enjoyment as Emily Henry's Book Lovers and People We Meet on Vacation. Henry has become my go-to romance author after Colleen Hoover, so my expectations were high. While the plot intrigued me, I struggled to emotionally connect with the characters. Despite this, it was still an enjoyable read.

Nasir Abbas Nayyar

Critic, Naiy Naqqad Kay Naam Khatoot

The true value of a book lies in how intimately yet compellingly it whispers unto our beings in our loneliness and resonates time and again. The vigour and the sweetness of the voice the great books are narrated through never vanish.

Among the books that I happened to read this year, Erich Fromm’s On Disobedience, Why Freedom Means Saying “NO” to Power, deserves special mention. Though its first edition was brought out almost four decades ago, the vitality and validity of its central argument are still intact and in our case are relevant more than ever. Conformity, traditionalism, convergence, always toeing the line, submission are all exhibitions of conferring authoritative sacredness to obedience. According to Fromm, history begins with disobedience and will end the moment obedience prevails. As our society believes in saying YES to power, it is devoid of history. The same cycle of events keeps recurring.

Sheldon De Kopp’s If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him also left an inedible print on my mind. Only you can cure yourself by believing that Buddha in the outside world is an illusion. And all illusions are there to be exterminated. Peter Watson’s Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, From Fire to Freud, remained my favorite throughout the year. Ken Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality revealed to me the significance of the integral vision and the hazardous effects of a disintegrated, compartmentalised worldview.

Asghar Nadeem Syed’s Urdu novel Jahanabad ki Galiyan, an amalgam of fact and fiction, ruthlessly reveals the oppressions of eleven years of Gen Zia’s dictatorship. In Saeed Naqvi’s Adhoori Kahani, the true story of Sara Shagufta, a feminist poet and a victim of patriarchal society and her desires, has been skilfully fictionalized. Reading Khalid Javed’s Arsalan and Behzad was an unforgettable experience. You might term it a postmodern dystopian anti-sublime novel, or a fusion of all these. It explores the depths and breadths, paradoxical relations of fiction and reality in a highly creative style. Osama Siddique’s Gharoob-e-Shahr ka Waqt is also worth mentioning.

Hasan Manzar’s Guzray Din (Passed Days) relates his four-year stint in Africa as a medical doctor in an elegant style. Rana Mehboob Akhtar’s Sindh Gulal is an intellectual voyage into the deep waters of Sindh’s history, culture and contemporary social reality.

Sabir Zafar’s 50^th poetry book Khazana Haiy Gham-e-Daher kay Faqeer is about the tragic lives of transgenders, first of its kind in Urdu at least. You can’t read it with tearless eyes.

Naima Rasheed

Translator, Naulakhi Kothi

This year, I renewed my commitment to reading more works by women, particularly South Asian women.

On a flight from London to Jeddah, I read Birth of a Mural, the poetry debut of Pakistani poet Hiba Heba. It’s a forceful work of reckoning. There are lines in there which could become anthems of feminism for a new generation of girls. Haunting images of eruption and dual lives linger after the reading, and the poems use a fresh vocabulary to hint towards a schism between our inner selves and the false performative self which is a social construct.

A Flat Place by Noreen Masud is a memoir about healing from complex PTSD. Reading it, I couldn’t stop thinking what a privilege it is to be living in these times. The generation of our mothers didn’t have a vocabulary for their trauma, let alone the chance to share it with a global audience.

Ayesha Manazir Siddiqui’s The Centre mixes translation with the dark arts. As a translator, I particularly enjoyed this work, which departs from the naïve, goody-goody take of ‘translation as a bridge’ and looks at the dark politics and power play at work behind the scenes. This is not to say that translation isn’t the bridge that it is; there are many other factors at play besides the intent to build bridges, and they don’t get talked about enough.

Then, there’s Farah Ali’s The River, The Town a fable-like work about intergenerational strife with the theme of climate change woven in. It has echoes of The Apu Trilogy in the way it captures the travails of the ordinary.

I discovered another brilliant Indian writer, Sumana Roy, through an essay she had written, The Helicoptering Author, and purchased her poetry book, V.I.P, Very Important Plant. She is original and full of surprises. I have taken to heart her recommendation at the end of the afore-mentioned essay to helicopter the work of other authors, in particular ‘strangers’.

Moazzam Sheikh

Writer, Cafe Le Whore and Other Stories

Just like last year, the number of non-fiction books lagged behind their poetry and fiction counterparts. But what I read was highly informative, given the genocide going on in Gaza. Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years War on Palestine draws, among archival material, from family resources, giving the history of the destruction of Palestinian lives with a human touch. Equally important was Ilan Pappe’s Ten Myths About Israel. It’s worth keeping in mind that the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe cannot live and teach in Israel. One more non-fiction work that I need to mention here is written by Vietnamese American Where the Ashes Are¸, which looks at the anti-colonial history from South Vietnamese eyes yet brings a wider balance towards the end, countering the American lens.

Last year, I began to visit several readings by poets and bought and read their books. The ones I liked were Cauldron by K R Morrison, Storage Unit For The Spirit House by Maw Shein Win, Monarch by Heather Bourbeau, Anandibai Joshee: A Life in Poems by Shikha Malaviya, Bark Archipelago by Sophia Naz, and When Your Sky Runs Into Mine by Rooja Mohassessy.

Fiction-wise, I read about 30-plus books, most of them recommended and of top quality. These are some of the one I’d recommend to any writer aspiring higher literary standards. Chinatown by Thuân, Battles in the Desert by José Emilio Pacheco, Compact by Maurice Roche, Stoner by John Williams, Violets by Kyŏng-suk Sin, and Woman Running in the Mountains by Yūko Tsushima were the best with a little-known classic by Meridel Le Sueur’s The Girl finding a special place in my heart for straight to heart, raw, rustic American register. I also enjoyed Chaitali Sen’s story collection A New Race of Men From Heaven for its sophistication as well as Talia Kolluri’s brave and unique approach to telling stories collected in her What We Fed to the Manticore. I was also impressed by Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children’s Archive, though I wish it had been trimmed down a bit.