Of shadows, skins and stones: three novels by Pakistani women authors Kamila Shamsie, Fatima Bhutto and Uzma Aslam Khan

(This is a review from our September 2014 print quarterly, 'The Southasian Military Complex'. See more from the issue here.)

For a few years, Pakistani English literature has been on the verge of a 'boom'; not quite an explosion, but what scholar of contemporary Pakistani literature Claire Chambers has called a 'flowering'. While the hoped for (from the Pakistani side, at least) equation with the Indian English literature boom that began around 30 years ago may be far from materialising, Pakistani writers are consistently bringing out new works, particularly novels, in English. Internationally best-known among them are Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed Hanif, and if we are to include a British author of Pakistani origin (India claims Salman Rushdie, so why not?), Nadeem Aslam. But, this 'flowering' is not limited to male writers. A small crop of successful and acclaimed Pakistani female writers are creating significant work, including Uzma Aslam Khan, Fatima Bhutto and Kamila Shamsie.

With Shamsie's latest novel, A God in Every Stone, having been published earlier in 2014 and her inclusion in Granta's 2013 collection of the 20 most promising British writers under 40, the release of Bhutto's debut novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon in late 2013, and Uzma Aslam Khan's Thinner Than Skin nomination for the 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, it is a good time to take stock of this 'growth' in Pakistani literature by women by looking at these three recently published novels.