A book newly acquired by the Thammasat University Library focuses on contemporary literature of Pakistan. Crimson Papers: Reflections on Struggle, Suffering, and Creativity in Pakistan was generously donated to the TU Libraries by the Embassy of Pakistan in the Kingdom of Thailand, coordinated by Khun Imran Shauket, Goodwill Ambassador of the Alhamra. The book is shelved in the Pakistan Corner of the Pridi Banomyong Library, Tha Prachan campus. Crimson Papers was published last year in Karachi, Pakistan by Oxford University Press. It is by Harris Khalique, a poet in the Urdu and English languages.
Mr. Khalique is also an essayist, columnist, and social leader. He was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1966. Both of his parents were authors. His father was also a filmmaker and his mother was a teacher. At first, he earned a degree in mechanical engineering from N.E.D. University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, followed by an MA from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom.
He is chief executive of the Strengthening Participatory Organisation (SPO), a civil society organization building community institutions in the public interest, women’s groups, and social movements to strengthen democratic governance, social justice, peace, and harmony. As the SPO website states, its values include:
- Partners/communities
We believe in sovereignty of and equity with our partners.
- Owners/employees/supporters
Ownership of our mission is based on mutual trust, honesty, professionalism and transparency.
- Process
Our process is based on an understanding of roles and responsibilities, which include accountability, ethnic impartiality and effective participation.
- Improvement
Creativity and innovation is the hallmark of all our efforts.
- Citizenship
As citizens of this country, we believe that everyone should access their basic rights and discharge their obligation with same fervor.
The SPO website adds:
SPO strives to empower marginalized communities through its activities and interventions across Pakistan. To appreciate the struggle of women, men and communities in bringing about change in their lives and communities, SPO regularly compiles and publishes their stories in the shape of case studies. These stories do not represent an overall view of the situation but they definitely represent snippets of the bigger picture.
Among its projects is the Peace and Social Harmony Programme, which encourages civil society networks, faith-based organisations and groups to participate in decision-making for to protect basic rights, regardless of religion, language, ethnicity, or class. Social harmony is built among different groups, who share and understand one another’s points of view while respecting their differences. The empowerment of women is also a key goal, raising awareness of good governance and providing political education to enable women to play a role in local governments. Helping with local disasters, especially with flood relief, is another target of SPO activities, allowing communities to recover faster after such events occur.
Literary Work
In addition to his social activism, Mr. Khalique has published collections of poems. Among his other books which are available to TU students and ajarns through interlibrary loan is Unfinished Histories: Stories of Separation and Belonging from the South Asian Diaspora (2002). He also coedited The Many Faces of Tolerance: an Anthology of Poems by Children (2003). His article, The Urdu-English Relationship and Its Impact on Pakistan’s Social Development (2007) was published by the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia, University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA. His work has also appeared in the anthologies Dragonfly in the Sun: 50 years of Pakistani Writing in English (1997) and The Poetry of Men’s Lives (2004). Mr. Khalique is a frequent contributor to Dawn, Pakistan’s oldest and most widely read English-language newspaper. Dawn was established by Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876 –1948), a lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as Pakistan’s first Governor-General. The Pakistan Corner of the Pridi Banomyong Library offers several books about this leader. Recently in Dawn, Mr. Khalique wrote about the Nobel-prizewinning author V. S. Naipaul, whose works are also in the collection of the TU Library. Of Naipaul, who died in August of this year, Mr. Khalique writes:
With 16 works of fiction and a similar amount of non-fiction to his credit, he had this uncanny ability to write masterful prose with a gripping narration of human stories that would overawe the reader. But the moment an involved reader scratched the surface, Naipaul’s disenchantment with his native past and an inherent veneration for the Western imperial order would appear. From A House for Mr Biswas and The Mimic Men in fiction, to An Area of Darkness and Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey in non-fiction, the self-glorifying Anglophile who broke his chains of poverty and ignorance looks at the non-Western world with the binoculars of suspicion and loathing. This is more obvious and direct in his non-fiction where, in his essays, travel writings, journalistic pieces or lectures, there is contempt and disappointment for all peoples and cultures of the formerly colonised world — India, Africa or the Caribbean — and a particular disdain for Islam and Muslims… Naipaul’s terrible lopsidedness in his praise for Western values and barefaced Eurocentrism were second to none among the writers in his league.
In July, Mr. Khalique celebrated a writer who is also represented in the collection of the TU Library, the French poet and essayist Paul Valéry (1871-1945):
[Valéry] captured his readers’ imagination like few would. Many of his poems cast a spell like ‘absolute’ poetry must. He was a symbolist inspired by his mentor, Stephane Mallarme. In his prose — which encompasses commentaries on philosophy, literature, painting, music, theatre and dance — he offers a whole new universe of ideas, knowledge, consciousness and sensibility. His early 20th century poems were enough to secure his place among the most significant French poets ever. While he wrote fewer poems than most of his contemporaries, he was more prolific in prose. The near-cynicism found in Valéry’s rational description of human nature and human condition makes it contagious. In his essay, ‘A Preface to Montesquieu’s Persian Letters’, Valéry reflects on the inherent brutishness of the human individual, the desire for order in the same person and the collective desire to be able to survive and prosper, the freedom of expression that becomes possible once an order is established and, the tense engagement between fact and fiction as the former represents brutishness and the latter underlines order.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)