The publishing industry in Pakistan is hampered both by a low literacy rate (65%).
Mohsin Hamid is a British Pakistani novelist, writer and brand consultant. His novels are Moth Smoke (2000), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007), How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (2013), Exit West (2017), and The Last White Man (2022).
Nilanjana S. Roy is an Indian journalist, literary critic, editor, and author. She has written the fiction books The Wildings and The Hundred Names of Darkness, and the essay collection The Girl Who Ate Books. She is the editor of the anthologies A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing on Food and Our Freedoms.
Mohammed Hanif is a British Pakistani writer and journalist who writes a monthly opinion piece in The New York Times.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi is a Pakistani-Canadian author, translator, and storyteller. Farooqi was among the five writers shortlisted for Asia's most prestigious literary prize in 2012. In addition to his fiction and translation projects, he is working on establishing an Urdu language publishing program specializing in children's literature and classics. He founded the publishing house KITAB (2012), launched the online index Urdu Thesaurus (2016), and designed the interactive storytelling and reading initiative STORYKIT Program (2016). These three projects have been integrated in an activity-based learning program for children.
A Case of Exploding Mangoes is a 2008 comic novel by the Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif. It is based on the 1988 aircraft crash that killed Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the sixth president of Pakistan.
Syeda Matanat Ghaffar, commonly known as Moni Mohsin, is a British-Pakistani writer based in London, United Kingdom. She wrote a long running satirical column 'The Diary of a Social Butterfly' for The Friday Times and a book with the same name.
Uzma Aslam Khan is a Pakistani American writer. Her five novels include Trespassing (2003), The Geometry of God (2008), Thinner Than Skin (2012) and The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali (2019).
Shehan Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan writer. He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. His 2010 debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and was adjudged the second greatest cricket book of all time by Wisden. His third novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was announced as the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize on 17 October 2022.
Pakistani English literature refers to English literature that has been developed and evolved in Pakistan, as well as by members of the Pakistani diaspora who write in the English language. English is one of the official languages of Pakistan and has a history going back to the British colonial rule in South Asia ; the national dialect spoken in the country is known as Pakistani English. Today, it occupies an important and integral part in modern Pakistani literature. Dr. Alamgir Hashmi introduced the term "Pakistani Literature [originally written] in English" with his "Preface" to his pioneering book Pakistani Literature: The Contemporary English Writers as well as through his other scholarly work and the seminars and courses taught by him in many universities since 1970's. It was established as an academic discipline in the world following his lead and further work by other scholars, and it is now a widely popular field of study.
Anuradha Roy is an Indian novelist, journalist and editor. She has written five novels: An Atlas of Impossible Longing (2008), The Folded Earth (2011), Sleeping on Jupiter (2015), All the Lives We Never Lived (2018), and The Earthspinner (2021).
Mirza Waheed is a British-Kashmiri novelist who was born and raised in Srinagar but now lives in London.
Ali Aziz Sethi is a Pakistani-American singer, songwriter, composer, and author. Born to journalists and politicians Najam Sethi and Jugnu Mohsin, Sethi rose to prominence with his debut novel, The Wish Maker (2009). Although Sethi received some musical training as a child, he did not begin to formally train in Hindustani classical music until after graduating from college. He trained under the tutelage of Ustad Naseeruddin Saami as well as under noted ghazal and classical singer Farida Khanum.
The Collaborator is the 2011 debut novel by Mirza Waheed. The novel is set on the Indian side of the Line of Control that separates Indian Kashmir from Pakistani Kashmir. The first-person narrator is a young man who ends up working for the Indian Army, counting the number of dead militants, killed in encounters, with the Indian army.
Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew is a 2010 novel by Shehan Karunatilaka. Using cricket as a device to write about Sri Lankan society, the book tells the story of an alcoholic journalist's quest to track down a missing cricketer of the 1980s. The novel was critically hailed on publication, winning awards and much positive review coverage.
Anuk Arudpragasam is a Sri Lankan Tamil novelist writing in English and Tamil. His debut novel The Story of a Brief Marriage was published in 2016 by Flatiron Books/Granta Books and was subsequently translated into French, German, Czech, Mandarin, Dutch and Italian. The novel, which takes place in 2009 during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the German Internationaler Literaturpreis. His second novel, A Passage North, was published in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
The Shakti Bhatt Prize is a literary award established in 2007 in memory of Indian publisher, Shakti Bhatt. Between 2008 and 2019, it was awarded for first books published in India by an author of any age in the genres of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and drama. From 2020 onward, the Prize has been awarded in recognition of a writer's body of work, instead of a first book.
Bilal Tanweer is a Pakistani writer and translator from Lahore. His novel The Scatter Here Is Too Great was awarded the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize in 2014, and was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Chautauqua Prize in 2015. He received the PEN Translation Fund Grant for his translation of Muhammad Khalid Akhtar's novel Chakiwara Mein Visaal.
The Scatter Here Is Too Great is a debut novel by Pakistani writer Bilal Tanweer, published in 2013. It depicts the event of a bombing at a railway station in Karachi. The story has been told from the perspective of witnesses, victims, family members, friends, associates, and lovers. The novel was awarded the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize in 2014, and was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and the Chautauqua Prize in 2015.
The Story of a Brief Marriage is the debut novel by Anuk Arudpragasam which was published on September 6, 2016 by Flatiron Books.
