Under pressure.

Byline: Hajrah Mumtaz

ONE of the very powerful authors whose work I have read is a Briton by the name of Neil Gaiman. He writes both non-fiction and fiction, the latter in the main fantasy and some sci-fi. He has done some wonderful humour, amongst the notable being the collaboration with the late Terry Pratchett (another absolutely gifted writer with boundless imagination and a genius for holding up a mirror to reality through fantasy, who shall by millions be forever missed). This book is called Good Omens, combining fantasy fiction with tropes of religion and ethics, morals and mores, all neatly packaged into a riveting read for (fairly) young adults - it has recently been shot as a TV show.

One must refrain from the temptation of digressing, however. The operative part of the case to be made here is a talk Gaiman delivered back in 2013 Dilating upon the importance of reading, especially fiction (but certainly not precluding other genres), of libraries and librarians, and inculcating in children a predilection for the written word, this is part of what he had to say:

'I was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him Why? SF had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?

The first condition for reading is literacy. That is where we are failing.

'It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.'

As Gaiman himself concedes in this talk and in several others, and printed articles, of course he has a vested interest here given that the written word is what he has an immense talent for (in my humble opinion, not his), and where he draws his bread and butter from. He goes on, however, to talk about how reading, especially fiction, builds character, empathy, and so many other skills that are vital to living life. In a movie, for example, one absorbs a scenario as dreamed up by the director or actors, but in a book it is imagined, fleshed out and populated by the reader himself or herself, building - if you will - amongst other aspects flexibility and...

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