Maniza Naqvi writes fiction. Her novels are: Mass Transit (OUP, Karachi, 1998); On Air (OUP, Karachi, 2000); Stay With Me (SAMA, Karachi 2004; Tara Press, India 2005); A Matter of Detail (SAMA, 2008; Tara Press, 2008); Sarajevo Saturdays (SAMA, 2009). Her short story "An Impossible Shade of Home Brew" is included in the anthology And then the World Changed (Feminist Press, 2008). Her short story "A Brief Acquaintance" is included in Neither Night Nor Day (Harper Collins, 2007). Email: manizanaqvi195 [at] hotmail.com
by Maniza Naqvi I called this essay “Owning our Stories” when it was published as a paper for a conference on sustainable development held in Islamabad in 2003. At the time I wrote this I was becoming increasingly anxious and worried about one of the greatest dangers facing the world: the justification of terror and…
by Maniza Naqvi On a Saturday, in the crisp air and bright light of the highlands, hundreds of people, a flood of people —made their way to and from the market place, as has been done for centuries, carrying on their backs and shoulders, their precious babies and bundled loads of produce and goods. A…
By Maniza Naqvi Burning the Koran was not a problem for some of the earliest and most revered Muslims considered to have been exemplary in their actions. In a manner of speaking, they were the forefathers of this tradition and had supremacy for burning the Koran in order, in their opinion, as a matter of…
by Maniza Naqvi “… How does our affair progress? I hope that, as dear Mr. Macgregor would say—U Po Kyin broke into English—eet ees making perceptible progress?” Burmese Days by George Orwell remains relentlessly relevant and a touchstone for cynics eight decades after it was written. The novel opens with U Po Kyin at age…
by Maniza Naqvi I. Mass and Matter II. Drywall I. Mass and Matter There is never, nothing. Nothingness is everything. What does it matter? Matter and meaning? Hurtling through life and hoping that it will amount to something—that it will take on mass. This Higgs boson question of what gives matter mass? In this moment—two…
by Maniza Naqvi In the country of Southern Diebeidiya a multi-fold problem had arisen. The people had been found out to be cheating, lying, ungrateful wretches. Not playing by the rules. Scheming and conniving to thwart our best intentions, breaking our trust at every turn. We had tried to make them pull themselves up by…
by Maniza Naqvi Would this sentence be a fair illustration of the entire terms of engagement of the rest of the world with the United States? From Foreign to Economic to Defense Policy it is a narrative as though of a paid intercourse: “Baby, my cash money.” This latest scandal, too will probably be obfuscated…
by Maniza Naqvi We drank hot tea which helped to cool us down. Without the fans swirling the air around us, it was sweltering hot in the room. And the many layers of silk I was wearing were beginning to stick to my back and arms. Just as we were getting started, the lights went…
by Maniza Naqvi The photographer, the journalist, and the novelist: wrapped in each other’s facts, cloaked in another reality, set out to worship a city mapped in news and fiction. A peacock sways across the tiled floor brushing its iridescent tail upon black and white marble elongated squares. We slip off our shoes,…
by Maniza Naqvi “Life, Madam is full of little, little inconveniences.” The receptionist, in a soothing tone, wearing the uniform of a friendly welcoming smile had said. “I do apologize for the delay but please give us half an hour and your room will be ready. In the meantime please enjoy our hotel lobby café…
by Maniza Naqvi (This is the Majlis I prepared and read last week for my mother, Narjis Khatoon Rizvi-Naqvi, who died on January 17, 2011). In this past one year I have sat in this living room in our apartment for long periods of time. In the evenings, this room with the candles lit next…
by Maniza Naqvi Tucked away in the frenzy of Lahore’s traffic congested Mozang Chungi, a framer’s shop, narrow, dark and dusty, bears on its back wall a minor conceit from history. A slight, which made the freshly formed impressions of a newcomer, even a tough customer like me, obsolete. At least it does in my…
by Maniza Naqvi “Books do make a room.” Or something like that, from a play—can’t recall which one—– a satirical jibe at the mindless tyranny of the self serving anti intellectual in society. Serving to this type of thinking with this type of laziness is hitched to a fine pitch for the American audience, in…
by Maniza Naqvi I stare at the garbled reflection, shifting shape, regiments of memory’s purchase, in full face and profile, read the riot act, novel, in the uneven mirror of an emperor’s palace as I identify myself and try to tear off a niqab. When Leo Tolstoy heard the Kreutzer Sonata, played for the first…
by Maniza Naqvi “@Time Square.” Brian texted back: “Also.” But we were on opposite sides of the street and the police barricades were making it impossible to crossover. The police, in their blue uniforms, wielding batons and shields, wearing bullet proof vests and helmets and even mounted on horseback strutted up and down several block…
Photographs from Zuccotti Park Notes on Zuccotti Park One: Mic Check! A Pay Check Away From You. Mic check! They are just a pay check away from being you. Take strength Keep your courage, for yourself And for them, they need you. They who are today up there Imprisoned– parked in concrete shelves—scraping the skies.…
by Maniza Naqvi “I mean they’re what— all of nineteen or twenty at most? And when push comes to shove they are going to get hurt around here aren’t they? Occupy Wall Street? Taking on the police—and for what–where will this go?” “What do you mean for what–what do you mean where will this go?”…
by Maniza Naqvi This has been a decade of bombardment of non-fiction books focused on inventing and imagining Pakistan and on burying it under these explanations. In addition to these titles from 2001 to 2011 there has been a proliferation of prolific instant experts explaining Pakistan and what should be done in and to Pakistan.…
by Maniza Naqvi Nearly 80 percent of the war supplies, non lethal war supplies, as they are called, for the US led coalition troops fighting in Afghanistan, snake through the city of Karachi. Much of the containers and oil tankers to the north from the Port either go through the Northern Bypass or through the…
By Maniza Naqvi “Have I over egged the pudding?” The room had become so silent that she thought she heard her thumb nail chip as she rubbed it anxiously against the lectern. “No, really, have I?” A faint apology in her disarming tone as she searched the vast auditorium and tossed her freshly tinted red…