culture

  • What did you do when it happened?

    What did you do when it happened?

    The car crash in a Paris tunnel. The fallout. The updates. I remember only Cartoon Network being unaffected. I sat in my pyjamas with a bowl of Shreddies and watched Cow and Chicken. Gran had just had the carpets washed, so when the second plane hit I was removing...
  • Dubai-based Dreamwork Collective launches poignant novel by Pakistani author Safinah Danish Elahi

    Dubai-based The Dreamwork Collective launches poignant novel by Pakistani author Safinah Danish Elahi

    Dubai, UAE: Dubai-based publisher, The Dreamwork Collective, has launched a powerful new novel confronting the complexities of adult friendship against the backdrop of childhood trauma. Written by acclaimed author, Safinah Danish Elahi, Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light, explores how the past can continue to shape lives, long after relationships...
  • Book Review: The Tree, the Well & the Drag Queen by Salini Vineeth

    There is, at the heart of The Tree, the Well & the Drag Queen (Red River Press, 2026), a trembling proposition: that inheritance is not land or memory, but a rehearsed, enforced, and, occasionally, resisted script. In this slender yet resonant novella, Salini Vineeth conjures a world where myth...
  • Literature Festivals, the Podium, and Dr. Arfa Sayeda Zehra

    Literature Festivals, the Podium, and Dr. Arfa Sayeda Zehra

    On 10th November 2025, Pakistan lost the beloved scholar Dr. Arfa Sayeda Zehra; and Lahore, its greatest lover, as she liked to call herself. Urdu lost a great educationist, Joy of Urdu lost its Chief Patron and Advisor, and I lost a mentor, a guide, and a friend. There...
  • Celebrating a feminist lens on human and environmental degradation

    Celebrating a feminist lens on human and environmental degradation

    ‘In the Black Mountains of Pakistan, the discovery of an unconscious, unknown man is the first snowball in an avalanche of chaos. The head of the village is beset with problems – including the injured stranger – and failing to find his way out. His daughter receives a love...
  • Untitled

    Untitled

    Will you? leave me she asked and I answered will you? Leave? Us? the partings the ones that refuse to tear sundering our leavetaking unbearable waves that threatenpromise to drown forgetting easier easier than unlearning our loving learning learning to unlove again to tip toe into hearts made different...
  • Crafting Fear: Unmasking the Psychopathic Character

    Crafting Fear: Unmasking the Psychopathic Character

    What drives an audience’s fascination with psychopaths? Why do characters who are completely devoid of empathy, like Hannibal Lecter or Dexter, command our attention? A panel discussion featuring British author Araminta Hall and Egyptian novelist Mirna Al-Mahdi delved into these questions at the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF...
  • On Silencing Creativity and Struggle for Free Thought

    On Silencing Creativity and Struggle for Free Thought

    Rahman Abbas is the winner of India’s highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, for his fourth novel, Rohzin in 2018. He is the author of eleven books, including seven novels. Rahman has also won four State Akademi Awards. His writings have been translated into English, German, French, Hindi, and discussed in...
  • Seagull Books: A Homage Designed For Artistic Endeavors

    Seagull Books: A Homage Designed For Artistic Endeavors

    The scent of a freshly bought book – crisp pages, glossy sheen, fascinating design and if it’s a hard cover – even better! Whether it comes in the mail or you buy from a bookshop, the anticipation and excitement of flitting off to realms beyond for an avid reader...
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