Basti has ratings and 42 reviews. Zanna said: My first and last journey with her. We left Vyaspur before dawn, but when the lorry reached Bulandshahr. A review, and links to other information about and reviews of Basti by Intizar Husain. : Basti (New York Review Books Classics) (): Intizar Husain, Frances W. Pritchett, Asif Farrukhi: Books.
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How was such a thing possible? There is, then, an intense feeling of alienation and emptiness that Zakir, as a migrant in a new country, feels. In the meantime, the dazzling artistry of Basti itself gives us reason to hope against hope.
Basti By Intizar Husain Pdf. Basti, by Intizar Husain, translated from the Urdu by Frances W. Pritchett B A S T I by Intizar Husain (1979) translated from the Urdu by Frances W. Pritchett (1995) (2nd ed. Basti By Intizar Hussain Online (in Rupnagar). We are uploading a complete novel 'Basti' written by Intizar Hussain in the voice of Tasneef Haidar. No Copyright Motion Gra.
It is also a difficult and challenging book to read. Intizar Hussain was an Urdu and English language Pakistani writer of short stories, novels, poetry, columns and non-fiction. Zakir gathers up the stories, and finds no contradiction, only an expansion of his image of the world. Pakistan is once again at a critical juncture of political transition. But Zakir is abruptly evicted from this paradise—real or imagined—into the maelstrom of history.
Bastiwritten inis set in when war clouds are gathering, the new country of Pakistan is no longer fresh and pure and hopeful but soiled and weary and entirely without hope and news from distant East Pakistan is ominous. When the slogan “Crush India” appears on taxis it is startling, because we have not left India in spirit, the movement, the crossing, is from a child’s paradise to adult sorrow and loss Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Basti by Intizar Husain – Penguin Books Australia
Though actually this is beautiful book, filled with lyrical memories of exploration in bawti, place, and faith. Love is primary in Basti and everything flows from it, even when it is only a shadow of a memory of a touch Basti is a novel of this uncertain sense of displacement.
Zakir’s father gives Zakir some keys.
The compact canvas of the novel, as a result, becomes even more poignant. Mar 01, Ian rated it liked it. It traverses back and forth like the dastan of yore, round and round like a kite with a cut string, it drifts and soars, backwards and forwards.
Like us on Facebook. Even when cities are left behind, they don’t stay behind. Another intriguing question which has been raised is whether Zakir is an autobiographical character. Books by Intizar Hussain. And then he dies. Entering into the myriad myths that have created their current culture, though, as anyone who reads the newspapers know, not without its negative effects.
It is a story of migrants, and every kind of migrant will be able to relate to it. Trio accused in JIT report reject findings, claim innocence.
Translation of celebrated Urdu novel Basti reveals search for a homeland
I bought this book last year, early in my translated fiction kick, and I think it’s easily one of the best books I found as a part of that interest. Their relationship is more forcefully interrupted later, and they remain separated — Vasti the one member of her family to remain in India after the partition, while all the other Muslims including Zakir moved to Pakistan, with most of Sabirah’s closest relatives going to the eastern part, what would later become Bangladesh.
Change is a force that can not be stopped: And speaking through them, in the course of everyday inconsequential conversations Intizar Husain slips in statements of great import and consequence, and says many things that his own oblique style of story telling does not allow. MarioLittle 29 July at Despite all that is lost to Zakir when he leaves behind his childhood home and arrives in a new nation, it is still a place of wonder, of possibility and generosity.
When the world was still all new, when the sky was fresh and the earth not yet soiled, when trees breathed through the centuries and ages spoke in the voices of birds, how astonished he was, looking all around, that everything was so new, and intizat looked so old.
Basti by Intizar Hussain
This may have been intentional in the original and certainly its jarring effect would be consistent with the characters’ experiences.
Man suffers due to three things; a disloyal wife, an over demanding brother, and education gained without any experience. The characters wait for a sign that minds and hearts may still meet. To ask other readers questions about Bastiplease sign up.
Why is this intisar
What’s going to happen? Aug 14, Faisal rated it liked it Shelves: I don’t mean that politics or history are sidestepped – rather the opposite, we are inside them in a way that makes it impossible baeti look down on the situation from above. This husaain perhaps the hallmark of his literature; it blends the past with the present in a most unnoticeable and gentle manner. While this book wasn’t completely terrible by any means, it was a slog to get through and the writing style was jarring to say the least.
Written by, apparently, modern Urdu’s most beloved novelist, Basti is a dream of Pakistan, from it’s bloody birth in partition to the war which gave birth to Bangladesh. Then husajn went their several ways, and forgot that anything had happened at all.
Apr 01, Kishwar Jaffer rated it liked it. No trivia or quizzes yet. Setting the tone for their story, young Zakir suggests early on:
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Basti
by
Intizar Husain
general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | Basti |
| Author: | Intizar Husain |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 1979 (Eng. 2007) |
| Length: | 215 pages |
| Original in: | Urdu |
| Availability: | Basti- US |
| Basti- UK | |
| Basti- Canada | |
| Basti- India | |
| Basti- España |
- Urdu title: بستى
- Translated and with a Translator's Note by Frances W. Pritchett
- With an Introduction by Asif Farrukhi
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Our Assessment:
B+ : fine impressionistic slice of Muslim life between India and Pakistan
See our review for fuller assessment.
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dawn | . | 17/2/2013 | Raza Rumi | ||
| The Hindu | . | 2/9/2007 | . | 17/5/2013 | Aamer Hussein |
| The National | . | 8/12/2012 | Scott Esposito | ||
| The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | . | 3/2/2013 | Paul Overby |
From the Reviews:
- 'The grand nature of Basti’s tale, therefore, grows on the reader; like an anti-hero, Basti weaves an epic and also challenges it from within by underlining the grains of nothingness in our everyday lives. Basti does not have a well-defined ending, as it reinforces the melancholy mood and raises more questions about the emptiness of human existence. Frances W. Pritchett’s translation is competent, though it struggles to address the intractability of the Urdu language. (...) Overall, Pritchett does an efficient job for which she must be commended.' - Raza Rumi, Dawn
- 'Intizar Husain does not live in the past, so much as he draws from it. His nostalgia is not comforting, there is that disquiet air that runs through his works, and Basti, arguably the finest novel on Partition, is no different. Distance in time often diminishes emotion, but in Husain’s case it only serves to distil it: what goes away is the peripheral, what is retained in the essential.' - Ziya Us Salam, The Hindu
- 'Basti, in spite of its engagement with grand issues, is a miniaturist's novel. Interwoven into its linear, if elliptical, narrative are diaries, letters, dreams, and memories that navigate the pre-Islamic Mahabharata, the 18th-century invasion of Delhi by Persian armies, and the so-called mutiny of 1857.' - Aamer Hussein, The Independent
- 'What results is a very modernistic pastiche, which, combined with Basti's minimalistic prose, tends to impose a distance between us and the very dramatic historical events around which the novel is built. (...) Although Husain's prose in Frances W Pritchett's translation is generally muscular and efficient, occasionally it crosses over into dullness and cliché. (...) One must commend Basti for its strange, melancholy approach to the partition of India, though its successes only partially compensate for its failures. A book that perhaps works a little too hard to frustrate a reader's expectations, it is nonetheless a worthwhile complement to the more lush, consciously historical novelisations of the subcontinent's tumultuous history.' - Scott Esposito, The National
- 'It is a compelling read -- a fine work of fiction that foreshadows in so many ways the Pakistan that exists today. Mr. Husain's fiction is marvelous for the writing alone. As a translator, Ms. Pritchett has done wonders to preserve many of the nuanced elements of the original' - Paul Overby, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
Basti is, in many ways, a sweeping novel, beginning in an India still under British rule before the Second World War and extending past the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. But this isn't standard historical fare: Husain offers detailed and often dialogue-heavy scenes, but skips over great periods of time, in a novel that is more photograph album than a narrative focused on continuity.
The central figure is Zakir, and the novel begins in his childhood, in the village of Rupagnar, where electricity is just being introduced. Change is a force that can not be stopped: Zakir's father is only absent for a single day from guarding the mosque, but when he returns the electricity has been hooked up, against his wishes; monkeys, too, are defeated by the high-power wires. Tellingly, too, it is about this time that the plague ravages the local population, Hindu and Muslim.
Relatives move to town, and among them is young Sabirah, a girl whom Zakir befriends and who remains a constant (though not a physical) presence in his life. Setting the tone for their story, young Zakir suggests early on: 'let's play bridegroom and bride', but she nervously worries that someone will see -- and a rainstorm interrupts them before anything else happens. Their relationship is more forcefully interrupted later, and they remain separated -- Sabirah the one member of her family to remain in India after the 1947 partition, while all the other Muslims (including Zakir) moved to Pakistan, with most of Sabirah's closest relatives going to the eastern part, what would later become Bangladesh. Sabirah remains on Zakir's mind, yet he finds it difficult to reach out and even just contact her over the many years that follow their separation.
The trauma of partition is strongly evident, yet Husain presents it and much else obliquely. There is conflict, flight, occasional terror, but little of the worst excesses of partition -- or then the 1971 war -- are described. Instead, most is in the vein of:
The discussion was first ideological, then personal, then insulting, then abusive, and then it came to blows. Passerby stood bewildered, stared at the combatants with fright, then asked each other, 'What's happening ? What's going to happen ?' In everyone's eyes a single terror, as if something was indeed about to happen. Then they went their several ways, and forgot that anything had happened at all. As though nothing had happened, as though nothing would happen.A first-person account by Zakir, dated diary entries ('a means for keeping my mind occupied during the wartime nights') of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, offer greater immediacy, yet also take on a surreal, alienated feel, Zakir exposed to war yet largely only indirectly. And:
The war threw the life of the city into confusion. Inside me, times and places are topsy-turvy. Sometimes I have absolutely no idea where I am, in what place.Basti is a novel of this uncertain sense of displacement. So, also, it's littered with abandoned houses, left behind by those who fled, new inhabitants (other refugees) often moving in in a world turned upside down. Rupagnar is abandoned, but remains the Zakir's (lost) home; moving to a new(ly created) state demands new allegiances, yet Zakir always remains torn.
It is a friend of Zakir's who suggests, in answer to the question:
'What has happened ?'Zakir is not convinced, but Husain is. There are scenes of precise clarity in Basti, but the overall feel is one of flashes and fog in this impressionistic novel of these nations and their history. It is successful as such, giving a good feel of the experience of these times -- even as it can frustrate in its many shifts and often disjointed narrative. Basti is a different kind of piecemeal historical novel, less concerned with detailed realism and continuity; as such, in many ways, it is also more true to life.
'It isn't clear. But what's the good of clarity ? What I feel obscurely is everything.'
A rewarding though unusual read.
- M.A.Orthofer, 6 February 2013
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Links:
Basti:- New York Review Books publicity page
- Armaenia Editorial publicity page
- Basti - text online
- Q & A with translator Pritchett
- See Index of Indian and Pakistani literature
- Other books from New York Review Books
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About the Author:
Basti By Intizar Husain Pdf
Indian-born Intizar Husain (انتظار حسین) (1925-2016), moved to Pakistan after the Partition. He was a leading Urdu author.
Basti Intizar Husain Summary Pdf
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Basti By Intizar Hussain Pdf
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