Folio Books
Voices of Dissent
₨500An Essay
Rs. 500
DESCRIPTION
People have disagreed since time immemorial. They have argued or agreed to disagree, or eventually arrived at agreement. All that is part of life, of living. But we live in times when any form of dissent in India is marked as anti-Indian, suggesting that the very concept of dissent has been imported into India from the West. It is an argument made by those who visualize the Indian past as free of blemishes and therefore not requiring dissenting opinions. But as Romila Thapar explores in this timely historical essay, dissent has a long history in the subcontinent, even if its forms have evolved or changed through the centuries.
Thapar looks at the articulation of dissent, focusing on nonviolent forms, which is so essential to all societies, and relates it to various moments of time and in varying contexts as part of the Indian historical experience. Beginning with Vedic times, she takes us from the second to the first millennium BC, to the emergence of groups that were jointly called the Shramanas—the Jainas, Buddhists and Ajivikas. Going forward in time, she explores the views of some Bhakti sants and others of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD, and brings us to a major moment of dissent that helped to establish a free and democratic India— Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha.
In her argument, Thapar emphasizes how religion has always reflected social change, and ends with the eventual politicization of religion in the present.
She also highlights the public response to particular forms of dissent. She places in context the recent peaceful protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens in places like Shaheen Bagh, Delhi. Implicit in this is the question of whether or not the idiom of religion is necessary. According to her, dissent in our time must be audible, distinct, opposed to injustice and supportive of democratic rights. The articulation of dissent and debate through dialogue is what makes of it a movement that changes society for the better.
Written by one of India’s best-known public intellectuals, Voices of Dissent has immense relevance. It is essential reading for anyone who contemplates not only the Indian past but also the direction in which society and the nation are headed.
ROMILA THAPAR is Emeritus Professor of History at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has been General President of the Indian History Congress. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and holds honorary doctorates from Universities of Calcutta, Oxford and Chicago, among others. She is an Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, and SOAS, London. In 2008 she was awarded the prestigious Kluge Prize of the Library of Congress, USA.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Release date: July 14, 2021
Rights: World
Pages: 150
Availability: In Stock
Views and Reviews
₨995
by Ammar Ali Qureshi
Rs. 995
REVIEWS
“A highly interesting and instructive book, a compilation of published columns and book reviews by Ammar Ali Qureshi. His scholarship, his command over the entire gamut of subjects that he delves into in each of his pieces, from columns to book reviews, and his captivating style makes the reading of the book a pleasurable experience”
– Muhammad Ziauddin, former Executive Editor The Express Tribune
“Ammar Ali Qureshi has done something refreshing that is not frequently seen in this part of the world. Borrowing from his guru AJP Taylor, he has picked some of his own published book reviews and essays from the last fifteen years to bring a book into shape. Qureshi’s lens is wide, whether it is trends, people, history, contemporary politics or culture. Each piece is interesting and readable, and carries the mark of his depth of knowledge and erudition. Therein lies the value of this publication.”
– Farah Zia, former Editor The News on Sunday
“Ammar Ali Qureshi’s unique blend of political analysis, cultural salience and spirit of reform shines through in this great collection of articles he has written during a most crucial time in Pakistan’s history. Voices like Qureshi’s help connect the high minded with the banal in just the right measure.”
– Mosharraf Zaidi, Columnist The News, and Policy Analyst
Binding: Paperback
Release date: August 2021
Rights: World
Pages: 210
Availability: Pre-Order
A World Unveiled
₨1,495Joys and Jitters of Many Journeys
by Razi Azmi
Rs. 1,495
DESCRIPTION
A World Unveiled captures Razi Azmi’s many journeys spanning decades across Africa, Asia, North and South America, and Russia, all undertaken with something approaching religious zeal. This is a compelling travelogue with many elements: personal stories, adventures, social encounters, historical facts, geographical descriptions, anecdotes and more. The author shares not just his passion for travel and the thrill of his journeys but also the frustrations and annoyances that inevitably accompany the intrepid traveller: moments of ecstasy and excitement interspersed with frustrations, dangers and vagaries of visas. As Razi Azmi describes his fascinating trips in A World Unveiled, he seems to take you along with him to his numerous destinations.
REVIEWS
“Razi Azmi chronicles his world-wide adventures in the great and enduring tradition of travel writers from Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta to Richard Haliburton and Paul Theroux. A keen observer and meticulous penman, he records in fascinating detail his journeys from tiny specks of nations like Lesotho to the vast steppes of Russia and the wide Canadian prairies. Throughout, his descriptions are colourful and witty and evoke the very character of the lands and peoples he visits.”
– B. R. Burg, Former Professor, Arizona State University
“Of many reasons to read this book, three stand out in particular: Razi Azmi has been to hundreds of places most people will never get to; he’s talked to more people in more languages than most people ever will; and he has a sense of humour more profound than most travel writers.”
– Carl Pletsch, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado
“Razi Azmi writes with empathy and respect for the lands, people and their cultures. I am particularly impressed by his detailed observations and descriptions of the people and places in Africa, the continent of my birth and growth. But it wasn’t until I read Razi’s travelogue that I realised how little I knew about my own continent.”
– Ali Tunne Godana, Kenyan Travel Enthusiast
“Razi Azmi, like me, was born with itchy feet, which took us far and away to different parts of the world. His accounts of India in particular—the places, the train odysseys, the bustling mood—are fascinating to read. I salute him for his travels and insightful narration of his experiences covering much of the world.”
– Sandip Hor, Indian Travel Writer and Photographer
“Razi Azmi gives us a poignant, simultaneous look at geographic, demographic and political landscapes. He’s a polyglot with as many interests and stories. Unlike accidental tourists, he follows an intentional course, with articulate conversations about both the structured and serendipitous. And he is fearless in doing so, following the George Packer model (the Atlantic): ‘A writer who’s afraid to tell people what they don’t want to hear has chosen the wrong trade.’ Azmi should never trade his trade; he demonstrates joy, courage and candour in his timely reflections .”
– Jerry Pattengale, Professor, Indiana Wesleyan University
“Packed with fascinating details and insights, A World Unveiled brings to life the infinity of meandering plains, the aromas escaping deep from within narrow bazaars. It is a gift for these times, when so much has changed for the intrepid and curious traveler alike.”
– Amna Zuberi, Pakistani Travel and Documentary Photographer
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Hardback
Release date: July 15, 2021
Rights: World
Pages: 336 including 21 maps and 22 photos
Availability: In Stock
Thinking With Ghalib
₨500Poetry for a New Generation
by Anjum Altaf and Amit Basole
Rs. 500 | $ 7.00
DESCRIPTION
This is an unusual book — the focus is not on what Ghalib means but on what Ghalib makes us think of contemporary issues. It puts Ghalib to work and brings Ghalib to life. It is an invitation to think with Ghalib about all the big issues — faith and religion, us and them, the nature of divinity, being and nothingness, the importance of thinking for oneself, what it means to believe, and what it takes to be human. It is a roller-coaster ride with one of the most creative minds of all time.
REVIEWS
“To think with Ghalib is to think with a fifteen-hundred-year-old sub-continental tradition of dissent that passes through Lal Ded, Kabir, Nanak and Ravidas before it reaches him. The only reason his name sounds odd in their saintly company is that, outside invisible lovers of poetry, he did not leave behind a panth. One can only be grateful to Altaf and Basole for giving us a book that is almost an act of inspiration: 30 couplets in English, Urdu, Nagari, and a transliteration of the original in Roman. Then comes the prose reflection on the couplet: lucid and explorative, it leaves us surprised at how we could have lost the questioning path that was there for the following. A panth of non-believers and doubters, then, something the sub-continent needs more than ever.”
– Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, poet, translator and literary critic
“Thinking with Ghalib is an invitation to South Asian readers to delve into, engage with, and enjoy the unique imagination of the founder of Urdu poetic discourse, shaping the creative orientations of generations through the printed media and expanding schools. By focusing on couplets, Altaf and Basole ask the reader to join them in a quest to experience tradition and modernity as a continuous public debate through one of the enduring forms of artistic expression in our cultures. A brilliant contribution to understanding the past in the present.”
– Ashraf Ghani, co-author, Afghanistan: A Lexicon
“With unusual clarity and a genuine sense of wonder, Altaf and Basole deliver a careful dialogue in thinking through Ghalib’s euphorically elevating verses as he romps through temple, tower and palace, manipulating complex realities in staggering two-line zingers. A must-read for people of all ages and all nationalities.”
– Azra Raza, co-author, A Tribute to Ghalib: Twenty-One Ghazals Reinterpreted
“Mirza Ghalib’s very survival as an inevitable and constant reference point for great poetry, and oftentimes for life’s travails, is a testimony to both the immediacy of his relevance and his transcendence of time. What makes him the extraordinary poet is his extreme sensitivity to the richness of his cultural heritage as well as its attributes of imprisonment. Ghalib imbibes the richness and yet rebels against it. Questioning from within is the single most striking characteristic of his poetry in tune with questioning that has sustained human civilization’s quintessential spirit through the ages: from Socrates to the Charvakas, from Mansoor al-Hallaj and Kabir to Descartes. This amazing experiment in unearthing the layers of meaning(s) in Ghalib’s couplets from their innermost depths sets a superb example of seeking out the soul of poetry. In any case, dissent resides at the very heart of ghazal, the poetry of love, as its raison d’ȇtre. Anjum Altaf and Amit Basole, both Professors of Economics, engaging in this literary endeavour also questions the neat disciplinary divides that academics are so enamoured of.”
– Harbans Mukhia, former Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Trustee, Ghalib Institute, New Delhi
“Here is a unique attempt — often brilliant, wise, provocative and always bravely original — to help young people, especially from South Asia, to discover (or rediscover) the poetry of Ghalib, and in it find both questions and possible pathways to answers to some of the most urgent and perplexing riddles of our times.”
– Harsh Mander, author and Director of Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi
“This a truly invaluable collection of specific Ghalib couplets, reprinted in the Roman, Arabic and Devnagari scripts and accompanied by an informed interpretation in English by Anjum Altaf and Amit Basole. The two authors succeed in highlighting the timelessness of Ghalib’s work and skilfully place his ideas and the profound questions about our world — and indeed human nature itself — within a modern context. The importance of this book lies in the fact that it is aimed at a young audience in the sub-continent and the diaspora. The discussion on each and every couplet succeeds in simplifying, yet highlighting, the complexities and nuances of Ghalib’s words. In the process, the book draws attention to subtleties of the Urdu language itself — and is likely to encourage young readers to reach out for more … I wish my daughters had had a book like this to introduce them to Ghalib when they were at school!”
– Muneeza Shamsie, writer and critic
“These selections, explanations and reflections will bring Indians and Pakistanis closer to Ghalib’s genius and, inshallah, to one another.”
– Rajmohan Gandhi, historian and author of Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten
“This remarkable book offers yet another way to enjoy Ghalib, through an in-depth, contextual and nuanced exposition of thirty of his couplets. Two centuries after his time, the great bard comes back to life in the skilled analysis of Altaf and Basole, giving new meaning to the line hui muddat ke Ghalib mar gaya, par yaad aata hai.”
– Raza Mir, author of Ghalib: A Thousand Desires
“This collection of Ghalib’s couplets was thoughtfully designed to be accessible to language learners at all levels. The writing style is light, even as it engages readers in an essential exploration of what Ghalib’s poetry means now. Each interpretation is deeply grounded in an understanding of Ghalib and his intellectual and social milieu, as well as a profound sensitivity to the poetry itself. In addition to a greater understanding of each couplet, readers will acquire the habits that will help them appreciate the world of Urdu poetry on their own. I only wish there had been a resource like this when I was learning Urdu.”
– Roanne L. Kantor, Assistant Professor of English, Stanford University
“Thinking with Ghalib is a welcome addition to the large archive on Ghalib for three reasons: first, because it makes this nineteenth century poet relevant to the twenty-first century readers in South Asia and the world; secondly, because it is a product of the collaboration of two prominent Pakistani and Indian intellectuals at a distressful juncture of our history which is a good omen for peaceful coexistence through shared intellectual and aesthetic continuities; and, thirdly, because it is in three scripts—the Perso-Arabic script of Urdu, the Devanagari script of Hindi and other Indian languages and the Roman script used for English and other Western languages which makes Ghalib available not only to South Asians but a very large part of the world. This book, I hope, will be the pioneer in the fashion for rewriting our classics so that they appeal to the present generation.”
– Tariq Rahman, Dean, School of Education, Beaconhouse National University, Lahore; author of Language and Politics in Pakistan
“As a Ghalib-lover I often read him and apart from the ecstasy I receive from some of his couplets, what strikes me poignantly is his humanism. Like Shakespeare, Ghalib is always in sympathy with human nature in all its shapes and degrees, elevations and depressions. This is the main premise of Thinking with Ghalib, a meticulously researched book by Anjum Altaf and Amit Basole.
“That Ghalib is for all times is an acknowledged fact. Altaf and Basole explain why it is so. More: they explore the layered meanings of Ghalib’s couplets and relate them to the critical political, psychological and economic issues of our times. Students of literature would benefit hugely from this book which ought to be a part of the syllabi of our universities.”
– Zia Mohyeddin, President of NAPA and author of A Carrot is a Carrot, The God of My Idolatry, and Theatrics
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Release date: July 10, 2021
Rights: World
Pages: 128
Availability: In Stock
Place and Postcolonial Ecofeminism
₨995Pakistani Women’s Literary and Cinematic Fictions
Rs. 995
DESCRIPTION
While news reports about Pakistan tend to cover Taliban attacks and bombings, and academics focus on security issues, the environment often takes a backseat in media reportage and scholarship. In particular, Pakistani women’s attachment to their environment and their environmental concerns are almost always ignored. Shazia Rahman traces the ways in which Pakistani women explore alternative, environmental modes of belonging, examines the vitality of place-based identities within Pakistani culture, and thereby contributes to evolving understandings of Pakistani women—in relation to both their environment and to various discourses of nation and patriarchy.
Through an astute analysis of such works as Sabiha Sumar’s Khamosh Pani (2003), Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani (2008), Sorayya Khan’s Noor (2006), Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing (2003), and Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (2009), Rahman illuminates how Pakistani women’s creative works portray how people live with one another, deal with their environment, and intuit their relationship with the spiritual. She considers how literary and cinematic documentation of place-based identities simultaneously critiques and counters stereotypes of Pakistan as a country of religious nationalism and oppressive patriarchy. Rahman’s analysis discloses fresh perspectives for thinking about the relationship between social and environmental justice.
Shazia Rahman is a professor of English at Western Illinois University.
REVIEWS
“A welcome intervention to the incipient debate on women and ecological degradation in Pakistan that will enrich understandings of self, place, and belonging beyond the narrow confines of the postcolonial state’s official nationalism.”
– Ayesha Jalal, director of the Center for South Asian and Indian Ocean Studies at Tufts University
“An urgent and consequential book on the deep entanglements between gender
politics and environmental justice. . . . Impressive, vital work.”
– Rob Nixon, author of Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
“This book will be required reading not only among ecocritics but also among feminist, postcolonial, ethnic, Pakistani, and American studies scholars.”
– Joni Adamson, director of the Environmental Humanities Initiative at Arizona State University
“Shazia Rahman’s ethically charged book offers a fresh and novel engagement with cultural production from Pakistan, an enormously important part of South Asia that is nevertheless often neglected in postcolonial studies.”
– Ananya Jahanara Kabir, author of Partition’s Post-Amnesias: 1947, 1971, and Modern South Asia
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: April 2021
Rights: World
Pages: 243
Availability: In Stock
Rethinking Pakistan
₨995A 21st Century Perspective
by Bilal Zahoor and Raza Rumi
Rs. 995
DESCRIPTION
This book brings together the leading contemporary currents of thought from a galaxy of established scholars and intellectuals of Pakistan. It is a monumental contribution to the national debate on a series of crises and lingering issues that need attention of the stakeholders all around.
The book covers three major areas of investigation into public life in the country. One, it delves into the historical, sociological and cultural causes of various political conflicts, ranging from the negative role of the educational curricula for national harmony to cultural violence and persistent militarism to the curse of enforced disappearances. There are highly analytical contributions that define the conflict-resolution nexus. Two, the book is a source of inspiration on the liberal agenda of creating a scientific frame of mind, setting the feminist debate in a global context, challenging the shrinking space for media and focusing on the largely forgotten area of industrial relations. Readers will find ample issue orientation in the analysis and policy orientation in the deliberations. Three, the book enters a domain of hope, planning for a bright future and focusing on some longer-term issues couched in comprehensive new approaches to development, environment, energy, foreign policy and feminism.
The scope of the book is amazingly wide, the analysis is rich with conceptual references and empirical finding, and the scholarly idiom is comprehensible for both the articulate section of the population and the scholarly community.
REVIEWS
“Rethinking Pakistan brings together some of the best minds of the country and invites them to reflect upon the most pressing issues that it is facing in all spheres – including politics, external relations, environment, human rights, gender relations, religious fundamentalism, education, freedom of expression … It is a most valuable collection that is highly accessible to everyone.”
– Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor, Sciences Po; Author, The Pakistan Paradox
“This book brings together the leading contemporary currents of thought from a galaxy of established scholars and intellectuals of Pakistan. It is a monumental contribution to the national debate on a series of crises and lingering issues that need attention of the stakeholders all around. The book covers three major areas of investigation into public life of the country. One, it delves into the historical, sociological and cultural causes of various political conflicts, ranging from the negative role of the educational curricula for national harmony to cultural violence and persistent militarism to the curse of enforced disappearances. There are highly analytical contributions that define the conflict-resolution nexus. Two, the book is a source of inspiration on the liberal agenda of creating a scientific frame of mind, setting the feminist debate in a global context, challenging the shrinking space for media and focusing on the largely forgotten area of industrial relations. One finds ample issue-orientation in the analysis and policy-orientation in the deliberations. Three, we enter a domain of hope, planning for a bright future and focusing on some longer-term issues couched in comprehensive new approaches to development, environment, energy, foreign policy and feminism. The scope of the book is amazingly wide, the analysis is rich with conceptual references and empirical findings, and the scholarly idiom is comprehensible for both the articulate section of the population and the scholarly community per se.”
– Mohammad Waseem, Professor, LUMS; Author, Politics and the State in Pakistan
“Each of the essays depicts Pakistan’s current social, political and economic challenges with analysis that makes this publication one of the few credible works on Pakistan available in recent times. The contributors are some of the most respected experts in the field on which they have expounded their thoughts, laying bare the malaise that have stunted social progress, democratic development and economic stability in the country. The essays also show a way forward making this a must-read for all generations of Pakistanis who wish to understand and contribute to the elimination of existing threats to peace, security and respect for human rights.”
– Hina Jilani, Advocate, Supreme Court of Pakistan; Co-founder, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
“Rethinking Pakistan is a wide-ranging analytical dissection of the Pakistani polity and offers a well-meaning, progressive prescription for present-day Pakistan, stitched together by an eclectic list of experts spanning diverse backgrounds and subjects. From energy self-sufficiency and scientific development to freedom of the press and the essential question of the dominance of the military over civilian affairs, this compendium offers a suitable guide for anyone who seeks to understand the striking mix of contemporary and historic challenges faced by Pakistan in the twenty-first century. A must-read on Pakistan’s contemporary realities and future prospects.”
– Shashi Tharoor, Ex-Foreign Minister, India; Author, An Era of Darkness
“The book sets up an unfamiliar but authentic diagnostic mosaic of Pakistan that the state prefers ignoring. It collects and presents the genius that Pakistan sets aside, stretched out on its ideological bed of repeated blunders. What emerges is an intensely original view from the marginalised intellect the world recognises as Pakistan’s survival kit.”
– Khaled Ahmed, Consulting Editor, Newsweek Pakistan; Author, Pakistan: The State in Crisis
Publisher: Folio Books
Division: Folio Course Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: February 2019
Rights: Pakistan
Pages: 266
Availability: In Stock
Womansplaining
₨995Navigating activism, politics and modernity in Pakistan
Edited by Sherry Rehman
Rs. 995 | $ 25.00
DECRIPTION
As we enter a new century, with its promise of change, women in Pakistan often emerge as its best face forward. At the same time, a persistent and growing trendline of disadvantage and discrimination throws up a harsh counterfactual to the motivating success stories. Knitting these skeins together is the complex, long, often untold tale of women who think, speak, act and give up a part of their comfort zone to push the rights agenda, to take on the architecture of patriarchy and extremism or to call out resurgent misogynies. This is a book about these women, by these women, for the women who struggle to find a voice.
This anthology of essays attempts to do two things. It seeks first to provide testament and context to women’s activism through the lived experience and voices of pioneers who not just headlined the rights struggle in Pakistan, but also gave it intellectual meaning and moral quest. In this endeavour, this book looks to capture a repository of important voices in order to create a slice of memory. The second idea motivating this collection is to probe the connection between the fairly coherent movement of the 1980s to the post-millennial activism that is challenging norms and pushing the boundaries of patriarchy today. Without forcing a grand narrative on the essays, a selection of younger writers uses this space to grapple with persistent barriers reified by the state, while speaking to new problems that tag on to new opportunities. These young women seek to add their voices to the changing face of women’s activism in contemporary Pakistan, while building a new vocabulary to address emerging challenges.
REVIEWS
“Poignant, profound and powerful.”
-Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former United States Secretary of State and Senator
“This book is a must-read. It shines a light on the potential of Pakistani women. I am awed and inspired by the sheer range of innovative thought and by the commitment to activism demonstrated by this anthology.”
-Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize Laureate
“Combining powerful voices from the multiple arenas, histories and strategies of the women’s struggle in Pakistan, Sherry Rehman has curated an original and enabling resource for everyone working for women’s rights and dignity across the Global South.”
-Ahdaf Soueif, Author, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution
“Like a loudspeaker, this book has amplified the voices of all kinds of women, involved in all kinds of struggles. This book is saying loudly and clearly that Pakistani women, be they rural or urban, economically poor or rich, will not stop thinking, speaking and challenging injustice.”
-Kamla Bhasin, Feminist, Poet and Author, Exploring Masculinity
“Wide-ranging and illuminating, this collection is a necessary read for anyone who wants to understand Pakistan and/or the tug of war between patriarchal oppression and feminist resistance.”
-Kamila Shamsie, Author, Home Fire
“This book does the important work of bringing together the discourse on Pakistani women’s experiences, struggles and activism, presented in bits and pieces in the past, documenting and describing the depth and breadth of the journey of Pakistani women towards recognition of gender identity, collective rights and access.”
-Justice Majida Razvi, First Female High Court Judge in Pakistan
“In the 30 years I have known Sherry Rehman, she has always been a pioneer and a true sister in a land which has not always appreciated it—and one of my personal heroes. Here she brings together an astonishing collection of voices, both young and old, to tell the untold history of how Pakistan’s women’s movement has evolved—and the battles it still faces.”
-Christina Lamb, Chief Foreign Correspondent, Sunday Times
“A timely and important book that unites intergenerational feminists in a call to action.”
-Tina Brown, Editor, The Daily Beast
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Weight in kg: 0.5
Release date: March 28, 2021
Rights: World
Binding: Hardback
Pages: 280
My Life and Struggle
₨1,495
by Bacha Khan
Translated from the original Pukhto by Imtiaz Ahmad Sahibzada
Rs.1495
DECRIPTION
Affectionately known as ‘Bacha’ Khan or ‘King’ Khan amongst his people, Ghaffar Khan’s life was dedicated to the social reform of the Pukhtuns, who traditionally adhere to a strict code of life, ‘Pukhtunwali’, governed by rather rigid tribal norms. His life-long struggle to modernise Pukhtun society and his decades-long non-violent defiance, adopted by his Khudai Khidmatgar (Servants of God) party during the struggle for independence against the British, have earned him a stature that few other anti-colonial leaders in the Sub-continent can match. Few are aware that the Khudai Khidmatgar lost the greatest number of workers compared to any other party that was part of the anti-colonial movement.
An increasing consciousness amongst the Pukhtuns against oppression and war, in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has led to a resurgence of the teachings of Bacha Khan. His powerful political weapon of non-violence, his emphasis on including women in all walks of life, his belief in religious tolerance and his legacy of speaking truth to power, are, today, values that bear increasing relevance to the people of a much-troubled region.
REVIEWS
“Bacha Khan’s message of the power of peaceful protest for liberty, equality and justice changed our culture and customs forever and inspires me every day in my activism for girls’ education and women’s empowerment.”
-Malala Yousafzai, Youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate
“As a student activist, what struck me the most about working with Bacha Khan was the strength of his compassion and his disarming humility. He would insist on walking long distances even in old age to reach the marginalised to help them or to at least express solidarity with them. The publication of English translation of his Pakhto autobiography is coming out at a time when younger generations are rediscovering Bacha Khan’s life and struggle.”
-Afrasiab Khattak, Former Provincial President of Awami National Party, former senator, writer and analyst of regional affairs.
“This compelling story is more relevant now than ever. Bacha Khan’s tireless struggle against oppression and division was non-violent and uncompromising, principled and creative. Readers will be enthralled and inspired.”
-Mukulika Banerjee, Author of The Pathan Unarmed, 2001.
“The life story of a man of peace and non-violence, born amidst mayhem and conflict across the Sub-continent, still carries a powerful message in the turbulent times we live in. The autobiography of Bacha Khan in English, for the first time in a lucid translation from the original Pakhto by Imtiaz Ahmad Sahizada, is a landmark publication. The history of modern South Asia has been incomplete without a better understanding of how and why the fierce Pashtun tribes embraced the Gandhian ideology of non-violent defiance. My Life and Struggle introduces a new and younger generation to the tribulations of the Pashtuns.”
-Ahmed Rashid, Author of Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 2012.
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Weight in kg: 0.900
Publishing date: February 06, 2021
Rights: Pakistan and Afghanistan
Binding: Hardback
Pages: 584
Revolutionary Pasts
₨995Communist Internationalism in Colonial India
by Ali Raza
Rs.995
DESCRIPTION
In this engaging and innovative history of the communist movement in colonial India, Ali Raza reveals the lives, geographies and anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries and how they sought to remake the world. Driven by the utopian visions of Communist Internationalism, Indian revolutionaries yearned and struggled for a global upheaval that would overthrow European imperialisms and radically transform India and the world. In an age marked by political upheavals, intellectual ferment, collapsing empires and global conflicts, Indian revolutionaries stood alongside countless others in the colonised world and beyond in their desire to usher in a future liberated from colonialism and capitalism. Drawing from a wealth of archival materials, Raza demonstrates how Communist Internationalism was a crucial project in the struggle for national liberation and inaugurates a new approach to the global history of communism and decolonisation.
REVIEWS
“Written with great flair, and refreshingly nonpartisan, Revolutionary Pasts will shift the paradigms of studying the Left in South Asia. Ali Raza embraces and acknowledges the complexity and dissonance he encounters in his archive, unpacking its agendas and offering them up to the reader with astute analysis, restoring race to histories of leftist activism.”
-Kama Maclean – University of New South Wales, Sydney
“Ali Raza captures the utopian imaginaries and the global itineraries that shaped Indian Communism, and brought Marx to the subcontinent in this beautifully written, meticulously researched book. His is a signal contribution to global intellectual history and to studies of Left thought and praxis.”
-Anupama Rao – Columbia University, New York
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Publishing date: January 22, 2021
Rights: South Asia excluding India
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 340
Missed Translations
₨795Meeting the South Asian Parents
Who Raised Me
by Sopan Deb
Rs.795
DECRIPTION
A bittersweet and humorous memoir of family—of the silence and ignorance that separate us, and the blood and stories that connect us—from an award-winning New York Times writer and comedian.
Approaching his 30th birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew the facts: his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone.
But Deb had never learned who his parents were as individuals—their ages, how many siblings they had, what they were like as children, what their favorite movies were. Theirs was an ostensibly nuclear family without any of the familial bonds. Coming of age in a mostly white suburban town, Deb’s alienation led him to seek separation from his family and his culture, longing for the tight-knit home environment of his white friends. His desire wasn’t rooted in racism or oppression; it was born of envy and desire—for white moms who made after-school snacks and asked his friends about the girls they liked and the teachers they didn’t. Deb yearned for the same.
Deb’s experiences as one of the few minorities covering the Trump campaign, and subsequently as a stand up comedian, propelled him on a dramatic journey to India to see his father—the first step in a life altering journey to bridge the emotional distance separating him from those whose DNA he shared. Deb had to learn to connect with this man he recognized yet did not know—and eventually breach the silence separating him from his mother. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us all: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don’t?
REVIEWS
“A delightful memoir of people and place that will draw in Deb’s fans and attract plenty of new ones.”
-Library Journal (starred review)
“I was moved by the ways in which Sopan Deb taps into both the darkness and light that permeate a story about love, family, and understanding. He’s a masterful storyteller, and I’m thankful for his bravery and willingness to share the kind of human story that we too often prefer to keep to ourselves.”
-Kal Penn, comedian and actor
“Both moving and hilarious, Missed Translations is not just about exploring culture, family, and love, but about understanding where one comes from in the deepest possible way. It’s a wonderful journey.”
-Jake Tapper, CNN host and author of The Hellfire Club“
“Sopan Deb hilariously and truthfully lets us in on the ups, downs, lefts, and rights of trying to understand – as a standup comedian and a journalist – the two grown-up strangers who raised him. It’s a crazy story, but you know. Good crazy. Funny crazy. Read-this-book crazy.”
-Pete Holmes, comedian, podcast host, and author of Comedy Sex God
“As a man who has both been a performer and covered performance, Sopan Deb now paints his most important picture yet, the self-portrait.”
-Roy Wood Jr., comedian and correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
“A sympathetic portrait of South Asians who are neither crazy and rich nor humorless nerds…Memoirs by children of immigrants often fault clueless parents; this one is refreshing for Deb’s realization that—whatever his elders’ missteps—he needed “to take some responsibility for my part in our family’s disconnect” for things to change.”
-Kirkus Reviews
“While his topic is serious, Deb’s writing is breezy and witty, and his earnestness will sweep readers up into this charmer of a memoir.”
-Booklist
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Publishing Date: December 31, 2020
Rights: Pakistan
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 272
Pakistan’s Political Parties
₨1,495Surviving between Dictatorship and Democracy
Edited by Mariam Mufti, Sahar Shafqat, and Niloufer Siddiqui
Rs. 1495
DESCRIPTION
Pakistan’s 2018 general elections marked the second successful transfer of power from one elected civilian government to another—a remarkable achievement considering the country’s history of dictatorial rule. Pakistan’s Political Parties examines how the civilian side of the state’s current regime has survived the transition to democracy, providing critical insight into the evolution of political parties in Pakistan and their role in developing democracies in general.Pakistan’s numerous political parties span the ideological spectrum, as well as represent diverse regional, ethnic, and religious constituencies. The essays in this volume explore the way in which these parties both contend and work with Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic establishment to assert and expand their power. Researchers use interviews, surveys, data, and ethnography to illuminate the internal dynamics and motivations of these groups and the mechanisms through which they create policy and influence state and society.
Pakistan’s Political Parties is a one-of-a-kind resource for diplomats, policymakers, journalists, and scholars searching for a comprehensive overview of Pakistan’s party system and its unlikely survival against an interventionist military, with insights that extend far beyond the region.
REVIEWS
“This is truly an important contribution to the literature on political parties and electoral considerations in Pakistan. There is nothing like it that currently exists.”
—Charles H. Kennedy, professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director, Middle East and South Asia Program, Wake Forest University
“This is a long overdue, but essential, contribution to our understanding of Pakistan. With an impressive author list, this will become the go-to book on understanding political parties in Pakistan’s hybrid regime.”
—Katharine Adeney, Director of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute
“Pakistan’s Political Parties is a timely and vital contribution to the social science literature on political parties in south Asia . . . . It presents an exceptionally lucid and well-crafted analysis of major political parties in Pakistan, their role and functions in a nascent democracy, and the relationship of political parties to other institutions.”
—Kavita Khory, Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College
“This wonderful book is absolutely indispensable for understanding Pakistan’s democracy, and all of the main actors and interests involved. The various authors manage very effectively to combine deep knowledge of Pakistan’s political parties, social groups, and interests, with the comparative breadth to put everything into broader theoretical perspective.”
—Steven Wilkinson, Henry R. Luce Director, The Whitney & Betty MacMillan Center for International & Area Studies; Nilekani Professor of India & South Asian Studies; and professor of political science & international affairs, Yale University
Rights: Pakistan
The Body Torn
₨695And Other Poems
by Fahmida Mirza
Translated by Tahira Naqvi
Rs. 695
REVIEWS
‘This translation of Fahmida Riaz’s poetry collection not only preserves the iconoclastic sensuousness of Fahmida’s Urdu original but adds to its evocative power through English diction and figures of speech. Fahmida Riaz’s voice had the distinction of breaking new paths, daring to deviate from fixed civilizational tangents in daring to talk about the female body and libido around which there were, and still are, strong taboos. This translation has been undertaken in the same spirit of daring in defiance of the forces of reaction which prevent the female voice from being heard.”
– Tariq Rahman, Dean of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Beaconhouse National University; Author of A History of Pakistani Literature in English 1947-1988
‘Tahira Naqvi has done a great service to the cause of transnational Marxist feminism in presenting to readers the iconic feminist poetry of Riaz, which evolves over her life and career, from solitary musings of “empowered” selfhood to a more communitarian understanding and embrace of solidarity across gender, class, nation in the pursuit of justice.”
– Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Professor of English and University Distinguished Scholar, Montclair State University; Author of Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan through its Women Singers
“An amazing sangam (confluence) of two creative feminists.”
– Kamla Bhasin, poet, author and feminist activist; Author of Understanding Gender
“Although every language has its own canvas that reflects the beauty of its words and culture, Tahira Naqvi’s English translations of the Urdu poetry of Fahmida Riaz fit well into that canvas, the words are like a stream flowing from the hills.”
– Kishwar Naheed, poet; Author of Buri Aurat ki Kathaa
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Publishing date: October 05, 2020
Rights: World
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 172
Availability: In Stock
Seventy Four
₨395A Novel
by Faraz Talat
Rs. 395
DESCRIPTION
A diabetic microbiologist turns 73 in a world that rejects the elderly, denying them healthcare in accordance with the draconian ‘Second Chance’ laws set in place after the Great Pandemic. When an opportunity arises to challenge this rule, her brother does whatever he must to make sure she lives to see her next birthday.
REVIEWS:
“A post pandemic story written way before the pandemic. A haunting little book about second chances, last days and human relations that survive the unsurvivable.”
Mohammed Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes
“Any culture’s science fiction is its dream of what its future could be. Now we live in a global culture, and Faraz Talat’s Seventy Four shoots right to the heart of all our current fears and hopes. It’s an intense experience, poignant and memorable.”
Kim Stan Robinson, author of Blue Mars
“Scientists become saviors in times of plague, but their attempts to exert control over pathogens and politics go awry in Faraz Talat’s science fiction novella Seventy Four. Razia Ntikoladze, eminent scientist and Pakistani emigree, is locked in a race against a deadly new contagion and her own mortality; before she can save the world, she has to escape the colloquium’s merciless eugenics project. A daringly brilliant literary experiment which pits humanity against its own worst enemy—itself.”
Bina Shah, author of Before She Sleeps
Rights: World
A Promethean Vision
The Formation of Karl Marx’s Worldview
by Eric Rahim
Rs. 995 Rs. 695
DESCRIPTION
A Promethean Vision outlines the main intellectual stages in the development of Karl Marx’s theory of historical development, often referred to as historical materialism or the materialist conception of history. The book charts Marx’s journey from his early life as a Young Hegelian immersed in German philosophical tradition through his turn toward political economy. In Eric Rahim’s interpretation his worldview developed as a synthesis of his philosophical thinking (critique of Hegel and Feuerbach) with classical political economy of Adam Smith. The central point is that Marx’s worldview should be seen as a method for analysing historical development and not as a ‘historical-philosophical theory’ with a deterministic approach to the understanding of historical development.
REVIEWS
“As an account of how Marx came to develop his materialist conception of history I cannot think of a better one [book].”
– Professor David McLellan, Goldsmith’s College, University of London; Author of Karl Marx: His Life and Thought
‘This is a remarkably clear exposition of Marx’s vision of human development. Eric Rahim demonstrates that Marx’s materialist understanding of human development bears no relation to the crude deterministic caricatures offered by some of his critics. For Marx, Rahim argues, what each generation inherits from its predecessor contains the potential for further development. Realisation of this potential requires that human beings understand both the possibilities and constraints of their particular conjuncture and act on them. This is not straightforward. Advance is possible but it is not automatic or pre-determined.”
–Dr. Renee Prendergast, Queen’s University of Belfast; Co-editor of Contributions to the History of Economic Thought
“It is no accident that after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, Marx’s Capital and Keynes’s General Theory returned to the bestseller list. Eric Rahim’s new volume, A Promethean Vision: The Formation of Marx’s Worldview, is an indispensable complement to a reading or re-reading of Capital. Rahim’s volume is an exemplary work of analysis and scholarship. It tells the reader where and what Marx was doing up to the writing of Capital. It sets out the historical and political environment in which Marx found himself and explains most clearly what his ideas were at each moment of time and how they evolved. The narrative is backed by detailed evidence and accounts of the interactions of Marx with his contemporaries and of their inter-related influence on one another. A striking feature of the volume is Rahim’s great ability to set out the essence of Marx’s ideas and breakthroughs.”
–Professor GC Harcourt, University of New South Wales; Author of Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital
Rights: World excluding United Kingdom
Pandemic
Covid-19 Shakes the World
by Slavoj Zizek
Rs. 795 Rs. 399
DESCRIPTION
As an unprecedented global pandemic sweeps the planet, who better than the supercharged Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Žižek to uncover its deeper meanings, marvel at its mind-boggling paradoxes, and speculate on the profundity of its consequences, all in a manner that will have you sweating profusely and gasping for breath?
We live in a moment when the greatest act of love is to stay distant from the object of your affection. When governments renowned for ruthless cuts in public spending can suddenly conjure up trillions. When toilet paper becomes a commodity as precious as diamonds. And when, according to Žižek, a new form of communism may be the only way of averting a descent into global barbarism.
Written with his customary brio and love of analogies in popular culture (Quentin Tarantino and H.G. Wells sit next to Hegel and Marx in these pages), Žižek provides a concise and provocative snapshot of the crisis as it widens, engulfing us all.
Slavoj Žižek is one of the most prolific and well-known philosophers and cultural theorists in the world today. His inventive, provocative body of work mixes Hegelian metaphysics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and Marxist dialectic in order to challenge conventional wisdom and accepted verities on both the Left and the Right.
REVIEWS
“An impressive feat… [Žižek] at his most powerful.” —The Guardian
“Passages of beauty… a hire-wire juxtaposition of far-left political theory and pop culture, held together by the force of [Žižek’s] rumpled charm.” —BuzzFeed
“Žižek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation.” —The New Yorker
“The most dangerous philosopher in the West.” —Adam Kirsch, The New Republic
Rights: Pakistan
تاریک ایام
₨495by Toni Usman
Rs. 799 Rs. 599
تفصیل
تاریک ایام ریاستی جبر سے تنگ آکر تارکینِ وطن ہونے والے باپ اور بیٹی کے درمیان نفسیاتی کشمکش کا ایک مکالمہ ہے۔ یہ کہانی ریاستی جبر، متعصب امیگریشن قوانین اور غیر انسانی سمگلنگ جیسے مکروہ جرائم کا خلاصہ پیش کرتی ہے۔ ہینی مانکل کے لکھے گئے اس اسٹیج پلے کو پہلی دفعہ کتاب کی صورت شائع کیا جارہا ہے۔ اس پلے کا اردو ترجمہ پاکستانی نژاد نارویجن آرٹسٹ ٹونی عثمان نے مرتب کیا ہے۔
ہینی مانکل سویڈن کے دارلحکومت اَسٹاک ہولم میں 1948ء میں پیدا ہوئے۔ 1966ء میں وہ تعلیم کے لئے پیرس چلے گئے جہاں انکی آشنائی ترقی پسند رحجانات سے ہوئی۔ 1972ء سے لے کر 1981ء تک وہ ناروے میں مقیم رہے اور تھیٹر کے لئے کام کرتے رہے۔ مانکل کا کہنا تھا کہ وہ دنیا میں استحصال اور لوٹ مار کے خلاف مذاحمت میں اپنا حصہ ڈالنے کے لئے لکھتے ہیں۔
مترجم ٹونی عثمان تقریبا تین دھائیوں سے ناروے میں ٹیلی ویژن، تھیٹر اور ریڈیو سے منسلک ہیں۔ ٹونی عثمان پروڈکشنز کے نام سے انکی ایک رجسٹرڈ تھیٹر کمپنی ہے جس کے وہ آرٹسٹک ڈائریکٹر ہیں۔ اسی کمپنی کے بینر تلے ہی تاریک ایام کو 2018ء میں اوسلو میں اسٹیج پر پیش کیا گیا تھا۔
Rights: Pakistan
Availability: In Stock
Feminism for the 99%
A Manifesto
Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser
Rs. 799 Rs. 299
DESCRIPTION
Unaffordable housing, poverty wages, inadequate healthcare, border policing, climate change—these are not what you ordinarily hear feminists talking about. But aren’t they the biggest issues for the vast majority of women around the globe?
Taking as its inspiration the new wave of feminist militancy that has erupted globally, this manifesto makes a simple but powerful case: feminism shouldn’t start—or stop—with the drive to have women represented at the top of their professions. It must focus on those at the bottom, and fght for the world they deserve. And that means targeting capitalism. Feminism must be anticapitalist, eco-socialist and antiracist.
ISBN: 978-969-7834-10-5
Publisher: Folio Books
Division: Folio Classics
Binding: Hardback (Cloth Cover)
Publishing date: March 08, 2020
Rights: Pakistan
Pages: 96
Availability: In Stock
Wild Boar In The Cane Field
A Novel
by Anniqua Rana
Rs. 995 Rs. 645
DESCRIPTION
In a world of magic realism, a fly-covered baby girl is found and raised by two mothers in a village rife with rituals and superstition. She pursues acceptance at all costs, while the villagers seek sanctity at a shrine dedicated to the Keeper of the Flies, which is separated from the village by a threatening cane field.
REVIEWS
“Rana gives us a compelling and rare glimpse into the life of rural Pakistan in her novel Wild Boar in the Cane Field.” ―BAPSI SIDHWA, author of The Crow Eaters and City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore
“Here we are gifted a world that is vibrant and richly imagined. The narrative voice is tender and patient in its portrayal of how tradition touches modernity, how the ancients sway the imaginations of the young.” — SHANTI SEKARAN, author of The Prayer Room and Lucky Boy
“An astonishing novel that transports the reader to rural Pakistan. The author paints a vivid picture that shocks and enthralls. Rural Pakistan is seldom written about—and even when it is, the overall effect isn’t convincing. With a host of unforgettable characters and a gripping plot, Wild Boar in the Cane Field towers over other contemporary literature. This is a debut you will fall in love with.”— AWAIS KHAN, author of In the Company of Strangers
“Immersive and intense, Wild Boar in the Cane Field, a novel by Anniqua Rana, explores the resilience of one woman’s spirit in the face of adversity.”― NRI Pulse
“Rana’s words echo long after the book is over as one mourns over the losses faced by her characters in the course of the narrative. The emotions are intense and extremely powerful. One can find oneself cheering for Saffiya and Bhaggan as they battle their way through a painful existence, riddled with blind beliefs and superstition… This book is a treat to devour from start to finish. Everything about it is vivid.”― KITAAB.ORG
“Rana is a vivid writer with a talent for evocative metaphors . ”— Kirkus Reviews
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: December 2019
Rights: South Asia
Pages: 238
Availability: In Stock
Faith and Feminism in Pakistan
Religous Agency or Secular Autonomy?
by Afiya S. Zia
Rs. 1195 Rs.1015
DESCRIPTION
Are secular aims, politics, and sensibilities impossible, undesirable and impracticable for Muslims and Islamic states? Should Muslim women be exempted from feminist attempts at liberation from patriarchy and its various expressions under Islamic laws and customs? Considerable literature on the entanglements of Islam and secularism has been produced in the post-9/11 decade and a large proportion of it deals with the “Woman Question”. Many commentators critique “the secular” and “Western feminism,” and the racialising backlash that accompanied the occupation of Muslim countries during the “War on Terror” military campaign launched by the U.S. government after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Implicit in many of these critical works is the suggestion that it is Western secular feminism that is the motivating driver and permanent collaborator – along with other feminists, secularists and human rights activists in Muslim countries – that sustains the West’s actual and metaphorical “war on Islam and Muslims.” Faith and Feminism addresses this post-9/11 critical trope and its implications for women’s movements in Muslim contexts. The relevance of secular feminist activism is illustrated with reference to some of the nation-wide, working-class women’s movements that have surged throughout Pakistan under religious militancy: polio vaccinators, health workers, politicians, peasants and artists have been directly targeted, even assassinated, for their service and commitment to liberal ideals. Afiya Zia contends that Muslim women’s piety is no threat against the dominant political patriarchy, but their secular autonomy promises transformative changes for the population at large, and thereby effectively challenges Muslim male dominance.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-969-7834-00-6
Publishing date: May 2018
Rights: South Asia
Pages: 249
Availability: In Stock
Strongmen
Trump, Modi, Erdogan, Duterte
Edited by Vijay Prashad
Rs. 595 Rs. 297
DESCRIPTION
The monsters have returned. They are led by strong men – by Trump, by Modi, by Erdoğan, by Duterte and by others. But these are not really strong men. These are men who pretend to be strong, who hide behind ugly rhetoric that befuddles the masses, but who are nothing other than cowardly when it comes to social reality. Rather than confront the difficult problems that face us – problems of unemployment and starvation, humiliation and inequality – they take refuge in an easy rhetoric of hate. It is so much easier to hate than to spend the time necessary to build the ramparts of a future world, one where the catastrophic social problems of today no longer define human existence. But the monsters of today – the morbid symptoms of this period of transition – do not care to tackle the problems of society. They blink at them, nod at them, and then move on to harsher prescriptions.
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-969-7834-01-3
Publishing date: May 2018
Rights: Pakistan
Pages: 101
Availability: In Stock
No Fortunes to Tell
Rs. 595 Rs.297
REVIEWS
“Harris Khalique explores with self-contained mastery the contrasts between official and untold history; the almost magical crudity of poetical observation aspires here to heal the well-spring of common stories where customary meaning loses its grip and absurdity finally makes sense.”
Omar Pérez—Essayist, Editor (Son of Ernesto Che Guevara)
“In No Fortunes to Tell, the poet records his experience of the world with brutal candour. His poems speak with chill detachment of war and its horror, destitution and disease and the dehumanisation of the poor. Beneath the matter of fact tone, spare language and austerity of the writing, there is pain for the human lot. This is a poetry that moves even as it terrifies and shocks. It shuns lyricism because the truth is too bitter to bear prettification or musical colour. ”
Adrian A. Husain —Poet, Author of Desert Album and Italian Window, Renaissance scholar, known for his Politics and Genre in Hamlet
“No Fortunes to Tell opens windows into a mind, one determined to confront its hauntings. Harris Khalique pays his respects to the shades of events that frighten us, leave communities unsettled and provoke our most necessary acts of love. His meditations refract violence, each abstracting human need from a detailed portrait of sorrow.”
Kristin Dykstra—Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, St Michael’s College, Vermont
“In precise, striking language Harris Khalique’s poems grapple with the great tragedies and moral questions of our time. He reveals Aleppo, Yemen and Waziristan as no reporter can, as only a poet can. A marsiya for our broken world.”Basharat Peer—Author Curfewed Night
Publisher: Folio Books
Division: Folio Poetry
Binding: Paperback
Rights: World
Availability: In Stock
Azadi’s Daughter
₨895Being a Secular Muslim in India
Rs.895.00
DESCRIPTION
“But strangely enough, I find all my identities under threat today. As a woman, as a journalist, as a Muslim, as a secularist, as a liberal and even as an Indian because the Idea of India as envisaged by those who led the struggle for Independence, and enshrined in the Constitution with all its guarantees and its protection, is under threat.”
A fascinating account of an audacious woman’s journey and a rapidly vanishing way of life, Azadi’s Daughter is both a personal memoir and a political commentary. Journalist Seema Mustafa writes evocatively of the secular, pluralist India of the 1960s and ’70s, chronicling her life as a Muslim woman born into the nationalist, progressive Kidwai family in Lucknow. As a child, her life was untouched by communalism, and even as she realizes that this was not the case for many, her book is a testament to the syncretic nature of secularism, in which a staunchly Muslim household was not limited to conservative interpretations of Islam.
Seema Mustafa incisively charts the events which have slowly begun to erode this tolerant, diverse ethos—the government’s handling of the Shah Bano case in the 1980s, the demolition of the Babri Masjid in the 1990s, the mass arrests and torture of Indian Muslim youth in the aftermath of the 9/11 bombings, and the Gujarat riots of the 2000s. She also examines the current state of secularism where people face marginalization and the threat of violence merely for exercising their right to religion, to livelihood and even to what they eat.
This book should set to rest lazy assumptions about Indian Muslims, and women in particular. Even as it highlights the dominant concerns of Indian Muslims—security, employment, education, housing—it also underlines their abiding faith in Indian democracy and its pluralistic ethos. A memoir that defies old assumptions and prejudices, Azadi’s Daughter is an important account of Indian Muslims in the modern world.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: July 2018
Pages: 208
The Hollow Kingdom
₨995ISIS and the CULT of JIHAD
Rs.995.00
DESCRIPTION
Governments across the world openly acknowledge the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as one of the greatest terrorist threats in history, greater even than Al Qaeda, which first set light to a global jihad. Never before has there been such a wealth of information, propaganda and counter-propaganda available on the subject, especially on the Internet. And yet, in all the noise, there’s confusion. This book draws on thorough research and rare interviews to deconstruct the founding ideology of ISIS and chart its growth: how it recruits, using the Dark Web to indoctrinate the disaffected and the emotionally vulnerable across the world; how it has spread globally, using violence as theatre and making secret pacts with cynical governments; and how it finances itself—through sale of oil, extortion and slave trade. The book also examines how this terrorist state is being dismantled by an unlikely coalition of forces from the Middle East and the West, even as it warns that the nationalist chauvinism and economic protectionism sweeping the world today could provide new fuel to ISIS and its ideology.
Rigorous and insightful, The Hollow Kingdom is a necessary read—a compelling mix of research and reportage.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: June 2018
Pages: 264
Availability: In Stock
Oh, Let Me Return!
₨750Nature’s Poets
Chinese Poetry of Two Millenia
Rs.750.00
DESCRIPTION
This Collection of nature poems of China includes nearly 250 poems by thirty-three poets over two millennia. Part One provides selections from the two oldest anthologies: the Shi Jing (“Classic of Songs”) and the Chu Ci (“Songs of the South”). Included in this part are folk songs of Ancient China as well as two long poems by Qu Yuan (340? – 278? BCE), the first known poet of China. Part Two begins with Tao Yuanming of the Easter Jin (317 – 420) and includes not only the well-known poets of Tang (618-906) and Song (960-1279) periods, such as Wang Wei, Li Bai, Du Fu, Bai Juyi, Su Shi and Lu You, but also twenty lesser known poets.
ISBN: 978-1-84519-888-6
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: June 2018
Pages: 222
Availability: In Stock
Lost In Translation
₨995New Paradigms by the Arab Spring
Abdelilah Bouasria
Rs.995.00
DESCRIPTION
Following the much-publicized self-immolation of Muhammad Bouazizi on December 18, 2010, a tempestuous succession of demonstrations, revolutions and civil wars swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. These events, collectively referred to as the “Arab Spring” spread contagiously throughout the Middle East and the Maghreb. However, for autocratic states, instead of ushering in tidy transitions of power, the revolutions and uprising descended into chaos, greatly complicating the task of analysts and historians attempting to make sense of the events. Has the Arab Spring brought much-needed change to the Arab people or will instability and turmoil preserve a perpetual state of “Arab Winter”.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: July 2018
Pages: 272
Availability: In Stock