In the 1980s and 1990s, India’s literary scene was vibrant whereas in Pakistan, military censorship and a lack of support for the arts resulted in a dearth of creative writers. The situation today is remarkably different as a number of talented Pakistani novelists are causing a stir in the publishing world.
The Pakistani literary renaissance is led by Mohsin Hamid, the first Pakistani to be included on the Man Booker shortlist with “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, Mohamed Hanif, author of a much praised first novel, “A Case of Exploding Mangoes”, Danyal Mueenuddin whose outstanding short stories, “Other Rooms, Other Wonders” are due to be published this summer and the amazing Nadeem Aslam whose latest novel, “The Wasted Vigil”, is probably his most accomplished so far.
Nadeem Aslam was born in 1966 in Gujranwala, Pakistan. He came to the United Kingdom at the age of 14 when his father fled President Zia’s regime. He read biochemistry at Manchester University but abandoned his studies in his third year to become a full-time writer. At that time, he had had only one short story published in Urdu in a Pakistani newspaper when he was 13. But his decision was crowned with success when the manuscript for his first novel, “Season of the Rainbirds”, was accepted and published in 1993. It won two awards, including the Authors Club First Novel Award.
When Aslam finished his first novel in 1992, he acknowledges that he more or less tossed a coin to decide whether he would write a British-immigrant novel or an Afghanistan novel. He thought that both subjects were equally urgent: “A bloody civil war had begun in Afghanistan, and the Pakistani immigrant community in Britain seemed well advanced on the path that would lead to the suicide bombings on July 7, 2005. I began to write “Maps for Lost Lovers”, my immigration novel, and as soon as I finished it in spring 2003, I started work on “The Wasted Vigil.”
Despite its global success, “The Kite Runner”, is, schmaltzy compared to “The Wasted Vigil.” Nadeem Aslam attempts to understand Afghanistan through its history of failed invasions, symbolized by the novel’s five main characters. Marcus, an English doctor, whose Afghan wife was murdered by the Taleban; Lara, a Russian, looking for her soldier brother; David, an American former spy, who has lived 25 years in Afghanistan; Casa, a young Afghan Taleban sympathizer and finally, James, the Special Forces man. They all come together in Marcus’ house, in the countryside near Jalalabad.
Aslam traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan, during the writing of the book. He spoke with teahouse owners, professors, museum curators and young men who had attended terrorist training camps: “It was easy to imagine a jihadist, once I realized that they all thought Islam was under threat, that their countries were in danger,” he says.
When asked if he considered, “The Wasted Vigil”, a political novel, Aslam said that he votes every time he writes a sentence:
“Politics for me is about feeling a certain responsibility toward the world I live in. From my viewpoint, all writing is political, even nonpolitical writing. Coming from Pakistan, and belonging to the Islamic world, I can’t not be aware of how politics affects our daily lives, how it is not just dry legislation and laws and statements. None of this means that my work is composed of slogans. I am first and foremost a novelist. I am happiest when I write something that satisfies me aesthetically but which also repays some of the debt I feel I owe to the world.”
Unlike his second novel, “Maps for Lost Lovers”, which took him 11 years to write, Nadeem Aslam finished, “The Wasted Vigil”, in seven months. During that time, he saw no one and his family brought him food while he was sleeping.
He writes in absolute isolation, draping the windows with black cloth, and not going out for weeks at a time. With his innate sense of poetry, he compares this atmosphere with the “silence and the darkness of a root that enables the flower to grow”.
“The Wasted Vigil”, is a multilayered description of a tragedy happening in a harsh country, unconquerable and seeped in traditions. Despite its history of constant invasions, wars and bloody tribal feuds, Afghanistan has always fiercely fought for its independence.
The tone of the novel is set from the very first pages when the author warns us that “No explanations are needed in this country. It would be no surprise if the trees and vines of Afghanistan suspended their growth one day, fearful that if their roots were to lengthen they might come into contact with a land mine buried near by”.
In this powerful drama unfolding in front of our eyes, Nadeem Aslam uses rich language, a powerful blend of lurid descriptions laced with a striking poetic prose. This talented writer is also endowed with a compassion which shines through all his work of fiction. He believes a novelist’s job is not to pose solutions but to find out how best to live. In “The Wasted Vigil”, he brought together a group of people with different political and religious views: “I wanted to write about how friends become family,” he says.
