Read Differently! 10 of the Best Indigenous Books Worldwide
If you are a regular reader of CulturalReads, you probably very well know that I wrote about some Indigenous books in the spiritual books. So,
Pakistan often finds itself in the spotlight for good, bad, and ugly reasons. The reason is quite simple: it is a nation of contrasts and complexities and at war with itself. But beyond the headlines, it is also a country of history, rich cultural traditions, spicy food, and breathtaking landscapes.
At CulturalReads, we discuss topics people often overlook, so why not discuss something that people often overlook: the best Pakistani novels? After all, Pakistan’s contribution to world literature in modern times is quite remarkable.
Many modern Pakistani fiction writers have made it big by writing about the country’s uncertain politics, partition, martial laws, ideological conflicts, and evolving identity.
And it’s quite interesting how Pakistani novels have gotten recognition in a post-2001 world.
One can attribute this to how the country has changed regarding ideological, historical and political affinities. And no one could have better addressed this than Pakistani fiction writers.
We will discuss this and some fascinating books on Pakistani culture. So, let’s begin!
When I recently wrote about the best Indian novels, I covered Rohinton Mistry’s Such a Long Journey. I mention this because, like Rohinton Mistry, Bapsi Sidhwa also belongs to a Parsi community, and there are very few Parsi writers in South Asia.
In fact, the Parsi community has declined and moved to Europe or America, running away from religious intolerance in India and Pakistan. Now, small numbers of this community live in Mumbai and Chennai in India and Karachi and Lahore in Pakistan.
Bapsi and her family also migrated to Pakistan during the 1947 Partition. It is here that she started her literary career. Her novel Cracking India is loosely tied to her life, partition, suffering from polio, and learning about life and religions in Lahore.
However, The Crow Eaters is one of her best Pakistani novels. It’s a satirical novel about the life of Freddy Junglewalla, a Parsi businessman in pre-partition India. After marrying Putli, Freddy moves to Lahore with his domineering mother-in-law. He starts a business and also attempts to murder his mother-in-law through sinister schemes.
So, it’s not just his manipulative nature that manifests itself in his successful business and plotting of murder. It’s also about the complex cultural landscape’s moral compromises and social manipulations. The themes of social mobility and familial expectations of a new country make it one of the best books by Pakistani authors.
If you first publish best Indian novels, you can interlink here.
If you publish Migration books post first, you can interlink here somehow.
I recently covered this Pakistani fiction book in my newsletter, so let’s discuss it in more detail. Writing satire is not easy, and very few fiction writers excel at this art. Interestingly, satire is something that dictators and authoritarian rulers can’t comprehend.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes is one such satirical novel. It is about General Zia-ul-Haq’s and an American Ambassador’s deaths in a plane crash. Gen Zia was a military dictator who ruled from 1977 to 1988.
Ali Shigri is a junior military officer investigating his father’s mysterious suicide. At the same time, General Zia dies, and there are many conspiracy theories about the crash. Shigri is one of the suspects in the plot to assassinate Zia.
The novel has multiple narratives, such as Ali’s vendetta, various military and intelligence operatives schemes, and historical figures like Zia. Hanfi’s dark humor satirises military culture, political corruption, and the absurdities of dictatorship, making it one of the best books by Pakistani authors.
I recently also covered Feast of the Goat, another brilliant novel about the Dominican Republic’s dictator, in the best historical fiction books.
Ever since Mohsin Hamid became a global literary voice, he has written fiction that mostly caters to Western audiences. One could cite his most recent works like Exist West and The Last White Man. There’s nothing wrong if you have a global readership. However, you certainly lose the flair compared to working closer to home.
Mohsin’s debut novel, Moth Smoke, remains one of his best Pakistani novels because of his authenticity. The novel focuses on the social class, desire, and moral decay in contemporary Pakistani society.
Daru Shezad is a middle-class banker who loses his job in Lahore and is involved in addiction and social rebellion. Things turn when he begins an intense affair with Mumtaz, the wife of his wealthy childhood friend Ozi.
As Daru’s life unravels, he actively uses drugs and becomes part of criminal activities. His desperation leads to a dramatic confrontation and legal consequences, making his life miserable and creating societal tensions. The novel rightly explores the stark social inequalities that define Lahore’s urban landscape, making it a great Pakistani fiction to read.
Kamila Shamsie is another prominent Pakistani-British writer who is known worldwide for her winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2018 novel Home Fire. Burn Shadows is one of her overlooked works, but it’s quite ambitious. It is an epic narrative of love and betrayal that begins in Nagasaki in 1945 and ends in Guantanamo Bay in 2002.
Hiroko Tanaka is a young woman in Nagasaki who loves her fiancé, Konrad Weiss. Her life shatters when the atomic bomb kills her fiance and destroys the city. The bombing leaves her with bird-shaped burns on her back as a haunting reminder.
Two years later, she moved to Delhi. Her life becomes entwined with Konrad’s half-sister Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee, Sajjad Ashraf, who teaches her Urdu.
As Partition reshapes the Indian subcontinent, Hiroko has to move Pakistan. Here, three things remain unsettling for Hiroko and related families. The unsettling reaches its peak when her adopted son moves to New York.
Even more mysterious is the fact that he ends up in Afghanistan after 9/11, and eventually Guantanamo Bay. Since I have talked about Japan and Afghanistan here, don’t forget to check books about Afghanistan and Japanese books.
Faiqa Mansab is one of those Pakistani fiction writers who writes about women’s experiences in contemporary Pakistani society. Her intimate narrative in this novel challenges social conventions that dig deeper into female experiences.
Nadia is a middle-class woman living an unfulfilling arranged marriage. She feels suffocated by her conservative husband and the restrictive social environment. All of this makes it difficult for her to meet societal expectations and personal desires.
However, things turn when she meets Saleema, a transgender woman who influences her path of self-discovery and personal liberation. At the shrine in Lahore, Nadia and Saleema make a friendship of mutual understanding and resistance.
Saleema, marginalized by society and facing extreme social discrimination, provides Nadia with a unique perspective on identity, survival, and personal agency. Their relationship becomes a metaphorical journey of breaking through societal barriers and challenging existing power structures.
It’s one of the Pakistani novels I’d recommend.
Snuffing Out the Moon is one of the best books to read by Pakistani authors, as it travels way back into history and far into the future. It perfectly blends history, politics, and speculative fiction that span six different time periods. In each time period, it explores humanity’s relationship with power, religion, and the environment.
The novel is a time travel in six eras, including the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, the Mughal Empire, colonial India, contemporary Pakistan, and a dystopian future. There are characters in each timeline dealing with challenges of their times.
And what are the challenges? Well, the struggle to preserve their way of life, confront colonial oppression, or deal with the technological and moral complexities of a speculative future.
At its core, this best Pakistani novel is about the human resilience and folly. So, if it’s a priest in ancient Mohenjo-Daro, a rebel leader during British rule, or a futuristic archaeologist, the stories show human struggles against tyranny, ignorance, and environmental degradation.
Although In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is not a novel but a short story collection by Pakistani-American writer Daniyal Mueenuddin. Daniyal has a unique ability to capture the rural and urban life in Pakistan. The struggle for class, power, and human relationships, makes this one of the best Pakistani fiction books.
The short stories revolve around people connected to K.K. Harouni, a wealthy landowner in Punjab. Each story talks about the lives of characters from different social strata, including Harouni’s servants, relatives, and business associates.
The narratives are quite unique as each character is true to its personal and emotional roots. So, every character has desires, betrayals, and aspirations. While K.K. Harouni remains in the background, his influence looms over people dependent on his wealth.
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is one of the best books by Pakistani authors that won many awards. It won the Story Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award.
Indian city Mumbai and Pakistani city Karachi have a lot of similarities. They both have sea ports, economic hubs, most populous cities, among other things. Another similarity is their fair share of crime and underworld.
And who can write better about that than Omar Shahid Hamid? It’s because he’s a seasoned police officer who has spent years working in Karachi’s turbulent law enforcement environment. And, he has used his experience to write one of the best Pakistani novels.
The novel begins with the kidnapping of an American journalist in Karachi, a case that triggers a high-stakes investigation. Two police officers, Akbar Khan and Constantine D’Souza investigate and try to rescue the journalist.
However, the investigation is not easy as there’s political corruption, organized crime, state interests and a police force compromised by internal power struggles. So, they face mounting obstacles, including interference from powerful political players who have their own stakes in the situation. What happens, doesn’t end well.
The novel is loosely based on the life of Daniel Pearl, a journalist of The Wall Street Journal, who was killed in Karachi in 2002.
Things have gotten too serious in our best Pakistani list so, let’s turn to humor again. And, no better writer than Shazaf who writes sharp wit with keen observations of family dynamics and societal norms. This is a delightful exploration of arranged marriages in a traditional Shia Muslim family in Pakistan.
Saleha Bandianm, a lively and observant daughter, narrates the story about all the drama that unfolds in her home. It begins with Zeba and Haroon approaching their marriageable age. Zeba, fiercely independent, clashes with her grandmother’s strict insistence on an arranged match.
Whereas her brother Haroon likes a Sunni woman, causing further turmoil in the conservative Bandian household. However, it’s Saleha’s mischievous narration that adds humor and charm to the escalating family tensions.
Over time, the family’s rigid traditions come face-to-face with modern ideas of love and personal choice. And, all the tension boils down to preserving cultural values and adapting to changing times. For its humorous misunderstandings, heartfelt moments, and dramatic twists, this is one of the best books to read by Pakistani authors.
Dur e Aziz Amna recently published one of the best Pakistani novels, American Fever. This is a coming of age novel that talks about the immigrant experience, cultural identity, and the challenges of adolescence. Dur e Aziz writes from her own experiences of moving between Pakistan and the United States.
Hira is a 16-year-old girl from a small town in Pakistan, who moves to rural Oregon as part of a US exchange program. She is torn between excitement and apprehension after facing the cultural differences and microaggressions of American life. After living some time, she critiques the assumptions made about her as a Pakistani and the limitations of her own upbringing.
As Hira adjusts to her new life, she is homesick and has a growing sense of disconnection from her family and roots. Her experiences in America, including her interactions with host families and peers, challenge her understanding of identity and belonging.
American Fever is one of the best books by Pakistani authors on cultural dislocation, identity, adolescence, and the immigrant experience. If you like the coming of age genre, you should check the coming of age movies.
Julien Columeau is a French author and translator from France. He left France to study Hindi in India in 1993, but quickly grew disillusioned with the “clerical” form of the language and shifted to learning Urdu.
He later moved to Pakistan with the International Committee of the Red Cross as a translator in troubled areas. But a love for Urdu language made him stay in Pakistan. He has written many short stories and other fictional works in Urdu. He now lives in Pakistan.
Here’s one of his short stories, Derrida in Lahore, translated into English, for The Paris Review.
One thing is quite evident from the best Pakistani novels is that English fiction has come of age. And, interestingly, there are many female authors who are writing English fiction. And, this shouldn’t be too surprising considering huge names of female writers who used to write in Urdu.
If you have any recommendations of the best books to read by Pakistani authors, leave a comment!
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