'Fahmida Riaz is an under-discussed fiction writer'.

Byline: Peerzada Salman

KARACHI -- It was thoughtful of Dr Asif Farrukhi to bring up the name of Fahmida Riaz, the poet and writer who passed away on Nov 21, as an under-discussed short story writer and novelist in his paper read during the first post-lunch session on fiction at the 11th International Urdu Conference at the Arts Council on Friday.

Dr Farrukhi's topic was Urdu short story in the post-symbolism era. He said the short story wasn't a static genre. It changed shape with time. The 1960s was a reaction to its preceding era in which symbolism was employed and in the 1970s the afsana was written under the influence of modernism. It was served by literary giants such as Intizar Husain, Anwer Sajjad and Mansha Yaad.

Then Dr Farrukhi drew the audience's attention to Fahmida Riaz. He said everyone knew her as a poet, but she wrote short stories as well. A new kind of sensibility was noticeable in her writings. She got more involved in fiction writing after she returned from India where she spent seven years in exile. She wrote top-notch stories in that period. The great thing about her was that she was an avid reader of international literatures. She would read works by the likes of Margaret Atwood and think about how their technique would work in Urdu fiction. She translated many pieces of fiction penned in English (or adapted in English) into Urdu.

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Dr Farrukhi mentioned Riaz's Hum Loag, a collection of three novels. He called them form-bending. He also touched upon some other stories written by her, such as Qafiley Parindon Ke, lamenting that they're not discussed the way they merited.

Undiscovered travelogues

Earlier, the session started off with Daniel Joseph's interesting paper on the undiscovered travelogues written in Urdu by women writers. He said he had been working on a project for the past three years to gather travelogues by female writers and translate them into English. The book (that he's working on) would be published in six months.

Mr Joseph said in his research he found out that most of the travelogues were about women's travels within India. There were also about those in which they'd gone to perform Haj. And some of them were about their visit to Europe. The writings hinted at diversity of styles and regions...