Author of four award-winning Punjabi novels, Zahid Hassan—Research Associate at the Gurmani Centre for Langauges and Literature—has recently published his latest book of (Punjabi) fiction, Hijr Tērā Jē Pānī Mangē, a work which he claims to be of personal nature. Published by Singri Publications in November 2018, this work is compiled as a set of 12 short stories—short accounts which take place in the same setting, i.e., his hometown, a small village near the city of Faisalabad. These accounts are based solely in Jānglī culture and custom, tackling notions critical to this particular group; themes such as black magic, treatment of women, family feuds, intimacy, property, as well as water politics, all surface in the book. In these heart-wrenching accounts, all emerging from the author’s own experiences and observations, we find characters which we can connect with, thoughts that have crossed us, people we have seen or met. Zahid Hassan, who also teaches Creative Writing in Urdu and Punjabi at LUMS, has received the Waris Shah Award by the Academy of Letters for all four of his novels.
