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 ...

WHO was Urdu’s first essay writer? This may be a tricky question. Dr Jameel Jalibi thinks it was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. In his Tareekh-i-adab-i-Urdu, or history of Urdu literature, Dr Jalibi has ...

KARACHI/ URDU LITERATURE: Urdu literature and history are integral parts of fiction writing, said speakers at the 'Fiction ke Baladtay Qalib' session on the third day of the ninth Aalmi Urdu ...

HYDERABAD: Urdu has been the heart of Hyderabad since time immemorial. While the number of writers, readers and enthusiasts has slowly come down, the city has a golden few of them doing their every ...

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

‘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 ...

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 ...

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.

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.

After the Dadri lynching, the Urdu writing community has been quite unhappy. Therefore, I decided to return the award. There are some other Urdu writers who also want to join the protest. It is high ...