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A review by shoaibmnagi
Basti by Intizar Husain
5.0
A dreamlike meditation on the birth and evolution of a nation explored through the eyes of someone physically and spiritually invested in it. Zakir, whose voice gives life to the novel, personifies the struggles of tens of thousands who crossed into the infant nation in hope of a dignified life.
The mental trauma of the partition, the dilution of sacrifice in the eyes of many when the nation fractured in two and the subsequent sociopolitical uncertainties that haunted the psyche of millions permeates Hussain's prose throughout the novel, prose that is fairly apolitical and yet captures the 'state of the nation'.
'Basti' is a reflection on love, loss, displacement and the piecemeal alienation of a man's existence from the land he calls his own. It is indeed the 'Great Pakistani Novel' and a must-read for specially young Pakistanis who are aloof from the tribulations of the two generations that came before them.
The mental trauma of the partition, the dilution of sacrifice in the eyes of many when the nation fractured in two and the subsequent sociopolitical uncertainties that haunted the psyche of millions permeates Hussain's prose throughout the novel, prose that is fairly apolitical and yet captures the 'state of the nation'.
'Basti' is a reflection on love, loss, displacement and the piecemeal alienation of a man's existence from the land he calls his own. It is indeed the 'Great Pakistani Novel' and a must-read for specially young Pakistanis who are aloof from the tribulations of the two generations that came before them.