Our essential reads for the week
The people of Pakistan may have won freedom from the yoke of British rule, but did they ever really gain independence from colonialism?
Following the passing of her maternal grandmother, Dur e Aziz Amna reflects on grief, love and rituals of mourning in this heartfelt elegy.
Pakistan’s spectacular defence against Indian attacks renewed the country’s strategic importance for global players, placing Pakistan in the unique position of being courted simultaneously by two great powers of our era. Dr Ammar Ali Jan provides historical context to this courtship to make visible both the contradictions that shape the present moment and the difficult choices they offer us.
In Urdu Bazaar Lahore, the symbols of Independence Day stand for more than just patriotism, they represent livelihoods and whole communities that revolve around them.
Is the right of self-determination and national liberation an automatic right for any community that claims collective consciousness and shared historical existence? And what are the limits of ethnic politics in Pakistan? Umair Javed explores these questions that remain central to left and progressive politics in Pakistan, even after 78 years of independence.
The trio of friends behind the short film Karmash speak to us about dropping out of film school, premiering at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and their creative process.
By Saba Imtiaz
By Umair Javed
By Maryam Jillani
By Haroon Sethi
Stories, Cultures, and Landscapes
Reflecting on the Zeitgeist
The trio of friends behind the short film Karmash speak to us about dropping out of film school, premiering at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and their creative process.
Aug 04, 2025
Where politics build walls, art builds bridges. Sara Danial speaks with Mauj., a Karachi-based theatre collective behind the recent production of Ramayana that has had social media buzzing on both sides of the Pak-India border.
Aug 12, 2025
The trio of friends behind the short film Karmash speak to us about dropping out of film school, premiering at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and their creative process.
Aug 04, 2025
Where politics build walls, art builds bridges. Sara Danial speaks with Mauj., a Karachi-based theatre collective behind the recent production of Ramayana that has had social media buzzing on both sides of the Pak-India border.
Aug 12, 2025
In September 2012, over 250 workers perished in a fire at Ali Enterprises, a garment factory in Karachi working for a Ge...
Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird (translated by Asa Yoneda, and shortlisted for the International Booker...
‘What is and was Lahore? How has it changed in its thirteen disruptions?’ These are among the many questions that flaneu...
Satire aims to provoke, but does Percival Everett’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel go far enough?
𝘏𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘓𝘢𝘮𝘱, the first ever book translated from Kannada shortlisted by the International Booker Prize, is a collection o...
The UK-based Pakistani author’s most recent novel A Woman on a Suitcase revisits marriage and the end of it
In our increasingly media-saturated landscape, in thrall of an attention economy that strategizes attracting eyeballs an...
Nobel Prize Winner Han Kang’s oeuvre may be be celebrated due to her status as a novelist “for the times”, but what sepa...
SPORTS
What explains Padel’s recent explosive popularity in urban Pakistan?
SPORTS
In recent years Pakistan has seen a bleak period in the T20I cricket arena. However, does the series clean sweep against...
In contemporary America, the system of financing election campaigns has become a vast, institutionalised behemoth that ensures elected officials are more accountable to their wealthiest donors than to their constituents. Therein lies the not-so-secret to bipartisan, unconditional support for Israel
From the encampments of Columbia University to the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza, an unprecedented sense of solidarity unites the world even as Israel strengthens its own dark alliances
A personal meditation on the distinction between art and luxury, beauty and gloss
