Trespassing (Uzma Aslam Khan 2005)
I was wondering if I hadn't read any more novels by South Asian writers-- yes, I was thinking of you, Aish. And it turns out, yes, I had! For class, certainly, but it is another book. And a post-worthy one. The post is again, from notes I made when reading the novel for class-- so please do excuse the slightly academic tone.
Here is something I got off of wikipedia
Uzma Aslam Khan (born 1969) is an English language novelist from Pakistan. Her fourth novel, Thinner Than Skin (2012), has been nominated for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2012,[1] Asia's most prestigious literary award.
Khan was born in Lahore and brought up in Manila, Philippines; Tokyo, Japan; London, UK and Karachi She was educated at St. Joseph's Convent School and St. Patrick's High School both in Karachi. She received a scholarship to study at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, New York from where she obtained a BA in Comparative Literature and obtained a MFA from the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA.
Early life and education
Khan’s first novel, The Story of Noble Rot, was published by Penguin Books India in 2001, and reissued by Rupa and Co. in 2009. It was met with positive reviews in major periodicals and newspapers in Pakistan and India – including Newsline,The Herald, Dawn, The Deccan Herald, and The Indian Express – and Khan was recognized as “a voice to watch out for.”
Her second novel, Trespassing, was published simultaneously by Flamingo/HarperCollins in the UK and Penguin Books India in 2003. It was subsequently translated into fourteen languages in eighteen countries.[6] Set in the 1990s during the aftermaths of the Afghan War and Gulf War, the book reaches epic proportions, spanning three continents and involving three intimately linked families. It is also a tragic love story, between Dia, daughter of a silkworm farmer, and US-educated Daanish, who meets Dia upon his return to Karachi for his father’s funeral. The book drew much international attention, with Tariq Ali describing Khan as "marking the emergence of a new generation of Pakistani novelists."[7] Writing for Outlook magazine, Nilanjana S. Roy wrote that “While Khan's prose may be subtle, her style is as forceful as any of the great storytellers… Khan is creating a tradition and style of her own as a writer.”[8] Trespassing was shortlisted for the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Eurasia region.
In 2008, Khan’s third novel, The Geometry of God was printed by Rupa & Co. India. As with her first two novels, Khan’s third was praised for boldly charting new territory, and for its characters – particularly its strong, spirited, yet curbed, women characters. She was by now also becoming recognized for her poetic depictions of the natural world, and for her frank exploration of sexuality, both unique in Pakistani English-language writing.[9] Other critics have marked the prevalence of violence and brutality in her work. Following its release in India, The Geometry of God was also published in Spain, Italy, France, the US and the UK. It won the Bronze Award in the Independent Publisher Book Award 2010 (in the category of multicultural fiction),[10] was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2009,[11] and was a finalist of Foreword Magazine’s Best Books of 2009.[12]
In 2010, Khan’s short story “Ice, Mating” was published in Granta magazine’s highly popular edition on Pakistan.[13] In 2011, her short story “The Missing” was published in Tehelka magazine.[14]
Khan’s fourth novel, Thinner than Skin, is slated for release in Fall 2012 in the US, Canada, and India.[6]
Khan’s fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, including the South Asian Review (University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, 2012), The New Anthem: The Subcontinent In Its Own Words (Tranquebar Press, 2009) and And the World Changed: Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women (The Feminist Press, 2008).
In addition to her novels and short stories, Khan has published numerous essays and articles around the world, including in Drawbridge UK, Dawn Pakistan, First City India, and for the online political journal, CounterPunch. Included in her articles for Counterpunch is her 2008 letter to Barack Obama, “Where’s the Change, Barack?”[15] in which she criticized the then-Senator for threatening to expand the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (a threat that was later carried out through accelerated drone attacks in the region).
[edit]Published works
The Story of Noble Rot (Penguin India, 2001. Reissued by Rupa & Co. in 2009)
Trespassing (Flamingo/HarperCollins UK, 2003. Metropolitan/Henry Holt and Company USA, 2004)
The Geometry of God (Clockroot Books/Interlink Publishing USA, 2009. Haus Publishing UK, 2010.)
And here is a brief summary I got from Redhotcurry.com
A world-class tale of love and deceit, rivalry and destiny from the Lahore-based writer Uzma Aslam Khan. Dia is the daughter of a silk farmer, Riffat – an innovative, decisive businesswoman. Like her mother, Dia seems at first sight unrestricted, spirited and resourceful. She seems free. But freedom has its own borders, patrolled by the covetous and the zealous, and there are those who yearn to jump the fence.
Daanish has come back to Karachi for his father’s funeral, all the way from America, a land where there are plenty of rules but few restrictions. When Dia and Daanish meet, they chafe against all the formalities. It is left to a handful of silkworms, slipped inside a friend’s dupatta, tickling skin, to rupture the fragile peace of both their houses – to make the space in which Dia and Daanish can create something together…
(About the Author
Uzma Aslam Khan grew up in Karachi. She is the author of one previous novel, The Story of Noble Rot (2001). She has taught English language and literature in the United States, Morocco, and in Pakistan. Currently she works for an NGO in Lahore, where she lives with her husband)
And now, my response.
Does Daanish “trespass the man-made boundaries and fundamentalism”
as Rahman argues in his article “Karachi, Turtles, and the Materiality of
Place”? : These three characters are admittedly the ones who are closest to
nature. Salaamat finds solace in nature (and
rescues the turtle), Dia loves her silk worms and is constantly musing over how
worms yield silk, and Dannish is attached to seashells to the extent that he
has them strung in a necklace. However, I am skeptical of the above statement
because being engaged in a friendly (not oppressive) relationship with nature
and its creatures does not automatically make one a trespasser of man-made
boundaries, much less a radical who resists fundamentalisms. Dannish’s
attachment to his shells signify his love of nature, I must concede, but the
shells around his neck (and his treasure box) does not necessarily endow him
with will power that will take him across traditional boundaries set for men
and women. He connects with Dia due to their shared love of non-human
creatures, but this connection does not go far beyond physical consummation. Daanish
never trespasses the tradition that binds him to the role of a docile
son—although he expresses his discontent frequently, he acquiesces to the
arranged marriage at the end, with no qualms over how he may have and will
continue to influence the lives of two women—his former lover, Dia, and her
best friend he is bequeathed to be married. Like his father, he armors himself
with tradition upon their return to India—the cave and the sea they both
frequent are not areas in which they trespass, but where they escape the
realities momentarily. Dia is included in Daanish’s excursions into the cave,
but this only means that she is also exploited as a temporary relief. He never
once ponders on taking Dia to the States, nor does he see the relationship
developing into something more than a fling. There is no trespassing of any
sort in their relationship.
*Cosmopolitanism? :
Rahman also argues that Daanish is a cosmopolitan figure, but this too, I
disagree with. He does travel to and from the United States and India, but
again, this does not mean that he trespasses man-made boundaries. Rather than a
cosmopolitan who deems himself a man of the world, Daanish is an uprooted
individual torn between two worlds, always a stranger. The estrangement does
not necessarily gift him with the ability to sympathize with other
displaced/estranged peoples in his “hometown.” The way he looks down on
Salaamat as a repulsive alien with no rights to look at Dia, although
justifiable in that Dia is in that moment his lover, exposes how shallow
Daanish’s so-called “cosmopolitanism” might be. For instance, he is able to
think about the pollution in context of the first Gulf War, but his thoughts do
not travel further, cannot delve deeper. He does not, or cannot, relate it to
the lives of those whose survival depends on the oceans, and how such pollution
may uproot an entire neighborhood. He cannot imagine that those who he looks
down on, might have been victims of such exploitative/destructive enterprises
of the United States or other countries he wanted so passionately to censure
and criticize in his journalism classes. The political awareness curiously
sheds away as he arrives home—which signifies how one is able to don and doff a
perception according to the social status he inhabits at a certain time in
life.
All in all, this is quite a good novel. However, (and I will not talk too much about it, since you might want to read it) I was not very happy with the main male character, and was not satisfied with the ending. (I guess I wanted Daanish to miraculously grow into a radical young man in Pakistan, but nooooo he doesn't change at all!) No spoilers, just my feelings.
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