And the World Changed Read Online Free PDF Page B

Rukhsana Ahmad’s story, “Meeting the Sphinx,” set in multicultural Britain, while Fawzia Afzal Khan’s “Bloody Monday” gathers up popular culture and religious ritual across three continents to make a comment on gender and sexuality. Maniza Naqvi takes this a step further in “Impossible Shade of Home Brew” to question gender definitions altogether, and also explores parenthood and loss, themes which are equally central to Talat Abbasi’s “Mirage.” Prejudice and division of culture and gender run through two stories that describe the Pakistani experience of “America”: Bushra Rehman’s “The Old Italian” and Soniah Kamal’s “Runaway Truck Ramp.” On the other hand, “A Pair of Jeans” by Qaisra Shah and “The Optimist” by Bina Shah describe cultural misunderstandings between people ostensibly from the same community. Hima Raza’s “A Variation in Voices” describes bridges that cannot be crossed, and the poignant “Scar” by Aamina Ahmad centers on the impermeability of class barriers. The stories of Sehba Sarwar, Sabyn Javeri-Jillani, and Nayyara Rahman reflect a younger generation’s desire to think back on historical divisions, nationhood, and identity. I included Shahrukh Husain’s mythical “Rubies for a Dog,” about a daughter’s determination to prove herself equal to a son, for its transcendent symbolism. The amassed texts also reveal two sets of mothers and daughters: Rukhsana Ahmad and Aamina Ahmad in Britain; myself and Kamila Shamsie in Pakistan.
    This anthology testifies, with its variety of voices, that Pakistaniwomen writing in English have come a long way since their pre-Partition ancestors. Today Pakistani women write creatively in English because that is the language in which they wish to express themselves; theirs is a literary tradition that has been long in gestation and is finally coming into its own. They no longer work in virtual isolation. They draw on the traditions of other English literatures as well as the vernacular languages of Pakistan. They are a part of the new world literature in English that gives voice to experiences beyond the traditional canons of Anglo-American literature. In this anthology their stories describe a myriad of experiences to reveal the richness, complexity, and multiculturalism of Pakistani life—and the wider world with which it is so inextricably linked.
    Muneeza Shamsie         
    Karachi         
    March 2008         
    NOTES
    1 . The official languages of Pakistan today are Urdu and English, but provincial languages, such as Balochi/Brahvi, Pashto, Punjabi, and Sindhi, are also important. There is also a host of minor languages.
    2 . The Crow Eaters was self published in 1978 and then was published by the British publishing house, Jonathan Cape, in 1980.
    3 . The English-language writing by South Asians has been known as Indo-Anglian, Indian English, or South Asian English. I am using the older term “Indo-Anglian” to describe pre-Partition work and thus distinguish it from the modern, post-Partition term, “Indian English,” which excludes Pakistani English literature, whereas South Asian English is the collective term for the work produced in the independent countries of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.
    4 . In “Sultana’s Dream,” Hossain reverses gender roles in a futuristic country, Ladyland, which is ruled by women. Her spare, terse prose was years ahead of its time, as was her description of a world where people can harness energy, travel by air, and use solar missiles.
    5 . Ikramullah’s groundbreaking doctoral thesis on Urdu fiction was written in a modern English and published as A Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story (1945); One of its most remarkable features