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A review by sarahj13
Karachi: Our Stories in Our Words by Maniza Naqvi
Did not finish book.
I don't think I've ever read anything worse than this book. I was excited to buy it from the literature festival because from the synopsis at the back I figured it would have unique stories about Karachi that aren't just about the target killing or the political unrest etc. But I was wrong. There were many things that were wrong with this book and I will list them down as follows:
1) Editing. I could not get past how many grammatical mistakes and misplaced punctuation marks there were in this book. I was surprised to find that an actual writer edited it. It didn't seem like that at all
2) The stories. None of them were unique. Most of them sounded like O level essays you write in the short time of one hour. But there are still many who write much better within that time frame than most of the writers of the stories in this book. They were poorly structured, depressing to read, even painful. Not to mention half of them followed the same theme- tragic endings.
3) Was it really necessary to include all the corruption that happens in Karachi in all of the stories? Was it really necessary to include target killings and bombings in EVERY. SINGLE. STORY?? There's way more to Karachi than that.
Overall this book was a huge disappointment. What fate will Pakistani English Literature have if it keeps churning out such awful stories? I couldn't even finish it.
1) Editing. I could not get past how many grammatical mistakes and misplaced punctuation marks there were in this book. I was surprised to find that an actual writer edited it. It didn't seem like that at all
2) The stories. None of them were unique. Most of them sounded like O level essays you write in the short time of one hour. But there are still many who write much better within that time frame than most of the writers of the stories in this book. They were poorly structured, depressing to read, even painful. Not to mention half of them followed the same theme- tragic endings.
3) Was it really necessary to include all the corruption that happens in Karachi in all of the stories? Was it really necessary to include target killings and bombings in EVERY. SINGLE. STORY?? There's way more to Karachi than that.
Overall this book was a huge disappointment. What fate will Pakistani English Literature have if it keeps churning out such awful stories? I couldn't even finish it.