FICTION: IMAGINED HOMELANDS.

The word has a tender ring to it, a kind of nostalgic yearning. Yet at the same time, it has a hard, razor-sharp edge. It is death and rebirth, fear and freedom, all bordered with loneliness and alienation.

Much of Unheard Voices: 21 Short Stories in Balochi with English Translations exudes these very emotions. They can be felt in Mehlab Naseer's 'There is No One' (Dega Kass Nist), in which a woman in foreign lands swallows every day the pain of living away from her parents.

We see it in Noroz Hayat's 'Yes, Dear Mother, Your Son is Back in the Mountains' (Haw Mati, Tai Bacch Kohestana Ent) about a young man pulled back to his homeland, which was once the anchor of his rosy memories, but is now a barren wasteland. Yet he is happiest here.

An excellent and diverse collection of Balochi short stories, published along with their English translations, allows us a peek into the daily lives of people in Balochistan and the alienation that pervades it

We also see the subtle, black humour which we as humans draw upon ourselves, so we can hide behind the wall of pain that arises from separation, from the loss of our only homes - symbols of childhood memories and a security and comfort that can never be replaced.

This is most apparent in 'Facing Exile, Facing Taunts' (Darandhehi pa Sare o Shegan pa Sare) written by journalist Sajid Hussain, who was found dead in mysterious circumstances two years ago, in a foreign land, away from his loved ones. Who could know the pain of exile better than him?

Exile - especially for the characters in these stories and, one might say, an entire community - seems to be a kind of out-of-body experience, as they are forced to leave their homeland for new, loveless, uninviting places where the sheen of convenience and better living attracts, but otherwise life is actually more or less 'lifeless'.

The theme of alienation runs through the whole collection. Is it because of the stories that were selected, perhaps unintentionally, by the editors? Or is it a familiar concern for most Baloch writers? It's not easy to decide, because literature emerging from Balochistan - much of it in the Balochi language - is rarely accessed by anyone on the outside, even though the Balochi literature movement is quite active and productive.

But it is not surprising either, because any literature emerging from a war-torn land can be seen as 'resistance literature' and in resistance literature, alienation is a common theme, as are loneliness...

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