Pakistani literature came to be defined after the country in 1947, gained its nationhood status. Its literature emerged from the literary traditions of South Asia. The literature emerged nearly in the whole country and got its value in some of the major languages like Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Pushto, Seraiki, and English.
One of the most prominent Urdu literature writers is Sadat Hassan Manto. He used to write short stories of South Asia. He has a great contribution to Pakistani literature, although he had been a writer before independence as he was born in 1912 and died in 1955, after a few years of the inception of the country.
Now, the writing style and ways have changed of Pakistani literature because it has divided into the class system and other complexities. Today’s literature has involved experimentation in Urdu literary forms and English literature. Urdu writers of this time have started imitating many fictions and writings from English literature.
Pakistan has been publishing several Urdu fictions and Urdu poetry and many other things in digests since the 1960s but leading publishing in it has always been pulp fiction. Muhiuddin Nawab has been writing for 33 years in Suspense Digest called Devta.
Some digest writers shifted to television drama script writing like Umera Ahmed. She is the most-liked and appreciated writer of the 21st century with Urdu literature contribution. Her many novels were dramatized and almost all Pakistanis dramas based on her novels got super hit. For example; Humsafar, shehr-e-zaat, maat, and Zindagi gulzar hai, were the most liked dramas.
Contemporary Pakistani Literature
On the other hand, the people of Pakistan are being observed to be appreciating the playwright Khaleel-ur-Rehman Qamar who also has a vast contribution to Pakistani literature. His written most of the stories are said to be based on real stories. His most super hit script writing that was dramatized was “Mere Pass Tum Ho”. Other plays are Zara yaad kar, pyarr afzal, and pyar k sadqey etc. His writings are appreciated due to the powerful dialogues he writes.
Moreover, Razia Butt is another renowned writer. She was the 20th-century writer whose most liked novel “Bano” was then dramatized with the name “dastaan”.
Today, people do not like to read more rather than rely on watching the stories or listening to poetry, etc through digital means. That is why plays or novels are directed and produced.
English being an international language of the country has much Pakistani literature. Many English Pakistani writers have great contributions in literature like Shahid Suhrawardy, Alamgir Hashmi, Daud Kamal, and Ahmed Ali, etc.
The Persian language is the lingua franca of South Asia. This language is adopted by most educated countrymen. Urdu being the national language of Pakistan and lingua franca is the most influential language has a great contribution in Pakistani literature. Although both are two different languages, Urdu speakers usually get influenced by the Persian language, for instance, Allama Iqbal had a great contribution to Persian language literature being an Urdu speaker.
Image source
