So That You Can Know Me: An Anthology of Pakistani Women Writers

by Yasmin Hameed (Editor), Asif Farrukhi (Editor)

Ghulam Mohammad, successful hotelier and shop owner, wants to sell up and buy a church a derelict church in a run-down corner of Birmingham and convert it into a mosque. But his son has other plans. With an eye on his temporal rather than spiritual riches, he will stop at nothing to protect his inheritance . . .This collection of seventeen short stories by Pakistani women covers a wide range of subjects, from the stream-of-consciousness that is Millipede recounting a man s descent into madness as his obsession that he has become infected by insects grows to the violence shown by a father to his son when he beats him to within an inch of his life in The Coach . The stories have a diversity that reflects Pakistani women themselves.First published by the Pakistani Academy of Letters, the narratives from the post-independence generation are translated from Urdu, Punjabi, Seraiki, Pushto and Sindhi. They reveal the increasing power and influence that Pakistani women writers have achieved in the last half-century and explore the contrasts and conflicts between the modern and the traditional worlds.This anthology has been produced in collaboration with UNESCO.

Genres: Pakistan, Anthologies, Fiction

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Malin Näfstadius · Rating 4 out of 5]

The quality of these short stories varies quite alot, sometimes I feel that the translation may not have suited them.

But there is strenght and resilience, protest and melancholy in these pages.
Mostly we meet women who are prisoners in their homes, marriages, families and cultures. Yet they manage to dream, hope and sometimes even stand up for themselves. Sometimes the strenght is in the words only implied but not spoken, like the faith of the powerless woman in 'A manly act' by Neelam Ahmed Bashir. Sometimes the physical abuse can be tolerated no longer, and Nisa's inner struggle with herself in 'The spell and the ever-changing moon' by Rukhsana Ahmed is tormenting and catches a universal feeling of women's plights in abusive marriages everywhere.

Stories of poverty and what we do to ensure the survival of our loved ones is guttingly portrayed in the mad woman's tale in 'Dilshad' by Zaitoon Bano. A reminder of that if we do not judge people but listen to them, they transform into what could have been you or me.
As with 'Paper money' by Razia Fasih Ahmed, who eloquently portray the gulf between the educated author who values paper for what is written on it, and his(her?) illitterate servants who see the same as a few rupees worth of garbage.

My favorite novella was 'The testimony' by Afzal Tauseef. An Orwellian pastische with plenty of historic and literary winks, portraying a police state (calling them Gestapo), where one lonely soul struggles to uphold her moral belief in the truth, against greed, lies and corruption, putting herself and her children in danger for her conviction. "Why does the straight path lead to the gallows? Why not life? Have paths forgotten their destinations?"