New Urdu Fiction | A Conversation with Khurshid Hussnain
- Feb 5
- 2 min read
Friday, 30 Jannuary 2026 | 6:00- 8:00 PM | A -11 Auditorium, Academic Block, LUMS
The Gurmani Centre organized the second session of the conversation series on contemporary Pakistani Urdu fiction, bringing into focus the author’s latest novel Manẓar ek Bulandī sē. The session aimed to explore the thematic, narrative, and conceptual concerns that shape Hussnain’s fiction, while also opening a broader discussion on the evolving trajectories of twenty-first-century Urdu novels.
The novel was discussed as a reflective and formally layered work that engages questions of perception, memory, and social experience. Moving between interior reflection and outward observation, Manẓar ek Bulandī sē creates a contemplative narrative distance through which everyday life, along with its moral, emotional, and intellectual tensions, becomes visible. Rather than foregrounding formal experimentation, the novel was examined as a consciously grounded social novel, dealing with lived realities and collective experience.
Moderated by Arshad Waheed, the conversation traced the novel’s development within the context of contemporary Urdu fiction. Critical remarks by Muhammad Naeem Virk situated the text within ongoing debates about narrative direction, thematic seriousness, and the renewed relevance of the social novel in the twenty-first century. Particular attention was paid to the novel’s dialectical structure, through which individual consciousness and broader social forces remain in constant tension.
The discussion also engaged with Hussnain’s approach to character construction, highlighting how characters emerge organically from social spaces rather than functioning as isolated psychological entities. The depiction of Karachi—its localities and neighborhoods—was read as central to the novel’s moral and spatial imagination. The speakers noted how the narrative captures not only the material realities of these areas but also the spiritual and affective associations that shape the lives of their inhabitants.