Saghar / ساغر

by Julien Columeau

Hardcover

About the author

Frenchman Julien Columeau came to Pakistan at the age of 30 as a humanitarian worker – but a knack for languages and love for books have made him one of the country’s most innovative Urdu novelists.
Writing mainly historical fiction with a prose described as vivid and forceful, critics say that Columeau, now 41, has injected fresh life into the literary scene.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/711627/fr...

Reviews

[Saher · Rating 5 out of 5]

یہ کتاب اردو پڑھنے والوں کے لیے ایک تحفہ ہے۔ کہانی ایک مونولاگ انداز میں لکھی گئی ہے جس میں حساس طبیعت ساغر اپنی کہانی آزادی کے بعد کے پس منظر میں بیان کرتا ہے۔ یہ ان کتابوں میں سے ایک ہے جنہیں بار بار پڑھا جاتا ہے پھر ہی ان کا اصل رنگ و لطف سامنے آتا ہے۔
البتہ انداز بیان لاجواب تھا مگر مجھے اس کہانی میں ایک ٹھوس سپورٹنگ کرداروں کی کمی محسوس ہوئی ۔

[mooky · Rating 1 out of 5]

First dnf of the year. I can't imagine myself reading this any further, I've sincerely tried to give this a chance at different times in different moods to see if I'll enjoy this work. Thrice was about as much as I could manage, I've failed.
The whole appeal with this book is that a non-native writer conceived this. There's nothing interesting about this book beyond the idea but that too is badly done. The prose is choppy, the imaginative bits are uninteresting and follow cliched tropes. The world seems underdeveloped, there's no dialogue yadda yadda yadda. I do think this book could've been saved from the hell pit of bad books —that waste tree lives; had it been edited further and developed more. Would've been fun. Alas, to the fire pit this goes.