This document discusses Pakistani literature written in English and the criticism surrounding third world literatures written in English more broadly. It notes that Pakistani literature in English was first termed by Dr. Alamgir Hashmi. It discusses how third world literatures are often judged based on their portrayal of nationalism, colonialism, and political conflicts rather than just artistic merit. The document also examines how language plays a role in discussions of third world literatures and how critics have debated whether English can accurately convey themes of national identity.

1. 

2. 
 Pakistani English literature refers to English
literature that has been developed and evolved in
Pakistan, as well as by members of the Pakistani
diaspora who write in the English language.
 Dr. Alamgir Hashmi introduced the term "Pakistani
Literature [originally written] in English" with his
"Preface" to his pioneering book Pakistani Literature.
Page no 1,2,3
AMNA SAYED

3. 
 National literature is one that exhibits themes and morals
of the ruling ideology of that nation. and that ruling
ideology shift the national literature will start to include
pieces that reflect those shifts.
 A national literature is an essential element in the
formation of national character. It is merely the record of
a country's mental progress, it is the expression of its
intellectual." bond of national unity, and the guide of
national energy
 It's the literature produced by citizens of a particular
nation. It's one way of grouping literature (e.g. American
literature. British literature. French literature).
NATIONAL
LITERATURE:-

4. 
 literature categorized by country, language, or
cultural group some of these literatures will be called
national literatures because they help define a
national Identity or provide a common reference
point for that country's culture.
 Literature in English is a common one that
encompasses all literature written in English
regardless of the citizenship of the author e.g. Things
falling apart by Chinua Achebe or The Scarlet Letter
Novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

5. 
 Literature is a universal thing. It doesn’t connect with a
specific place.Whenever a literary work is produced, it’s
for the entire world.
 Zulifqar ghose who is expatriate writer of pakistani origin
believed that “ we don’t need to work on nationalism.
Whenever a writer write a work his culture and society
automatically reflect in his work”.
 We don’t need specifically show our country in our work
because it would reflect in our style.


6. 
 Asian and europians can never ever be equal .
Europians ruled over asian and africans.
 Europians are colonizer and asians are colonized
society. So we have the aspect of colonialism.
 Our Pakistani literature can never ever be equal of
their literature.
 For example, we use jalebi word but it doesn’t exist
in English dictionary.

7. 
 To write a good literary work which shows
nationalism , there is no need to copy their words .
we should use our own words and vocabulary .
 " our lane " by Ahmed ali , he used words like "
makhan pera " or many other words which are
purely pakistani vocabulary or words and this shows
the purity of work.

8. 
 Nationalism, again a consequence of colonization, has
been a
 major force to reckon with in the Third World.
 In the first Congress of Negro Writers in 1956, for
example, a
 delegate exhorted African artists
to ’try to look at art through politics.
 The Second Congress in 1959 held in Rome also
emphasized the
 political basis of art. In the last few years the artists
themselves have
Pg no 4,5
sonal awan

9. 
 been less willing to tolerate these prescriptive
formulas and, as a
 consequence, the formulas have lost their force.
 African critics are, however, nationalistic and even
question the
 right of non-Africans to criticize African literature.
This is merely a
 political conflict, that between the colonizer and the
colonized.

10. 
 In the West Indies, the Guyanese magazine
 Kyh-over-al (1945-1961) tried to ’stimulate a West Indian
 theory and practice of literary and cultural criticism
‘another such
 magazine,
 The Beacon (1931-1933), from Trinidad, insisted that West
 Indian writing ’should utilize West Indian settings,
speech, characters,
 situations and conflicts’. This was all a part of an effort to
create
 authentic West Indian literature.

11. 
 Braithwaite, a famous West Indian writer, makes the
 fragmentation of West Indian culture and identity
his major
 theme. And then this theme, or an extension of it,
become a critical
 standard:
 Indeed this notion of estrangement from one’s
community and
 landscape becomes in Braithwaite’s various critical
articles or surveys

12. 
 of West Indian
writing the main” criterion for judging individual
 Caribbean writers.
 Once again one notices the tendency to judge
literature in terms of
 ideas and themes related in some way or the other to
the experience
 of colonization.

13. 
 And this tendency is also noticeable in the criticism of Indian
 literature in English by Indians. I will pay more attention to it because
 the cultural situation and the political forces influencing Indian critics
 are very similar to those which influence Pakistani critics
 Indian literature in English, began as a consequence of the
 confrontation of India with the West. Henry Derozio (1809-1831),
 Kashiprosad Ghose (1809-1873), Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1827-
 1873) and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) were some of the
 pioneers of Indian creative writing in English.9 But this writing was
 more derivative rather than creative. Ghose and Dutt, according to
 William Walsh, were ’low-toned versions, the one of torn Moore, the
 other of the lesser, romanticByron’.10 And Aurobindo Ghose (18670

14. 
 1924) ’wrote a delicate kind of Victorian lyric in
 Love Songs and Elegies
 (1898)’.11 Even Sarojini Naidu, famous though she was, wrote
merely
 meretricious pseudo-romantic verse in the style of the nineties.
 Bhupal Singh, the chronicler of Anglo-Indian fiction, did,
however,
 add a brief appendix to his book about some Indian writers of
fiction.
 Singh’s book was published in 1934 and he has not mentioned
any
 writer who gained fame later.

15. 
 In the 1950 k.R srinivasa iyengar, s book study of indian
writer in english 1959 is one of the first major
 study of indian literqture in english by an indian critics .
 A study represntative indo english novliest 1976 to
mention only three studies came later.
 There are also a large number of research articles is
 Sub-standard and others good, which are produced a
Or by lndians writer in Western iournals. In other words a
lot is being written about Indian writer in English present.
Pg 6,7

16. 
 The most important and balanced account of this
criticism and its concerns has been given by feroza.
 The manipulation of language to express Indianness
 and the endorsement of nàtionalism implicit n such a
 demand are also derived from nationalism.
 Feroza jussawalla respond the argument od pp
mehta,
 The choice of the English language, as I mentioned
 above, has been one of the major problems of Indian.

17. 
 Indians write in English to impress the British, to
 gain a wider readership international and national;
 Indians want the world to see that nationalist India is
 different, they distrust the vernaculars because they
 are not universal languages, and because of their
 Western education and Western models; they write
 at the inspiration of Western writers."

18. 
 At a more sophisticated level, Indian critics have
 invoked the extreme version of the Sapir- Whorf hypotheses
 in their discussion ot the posşibility of using English to
 convey Indian reality. The extreme version isan
 interpretation Of the hypotheses put forward by the
 American linguists Edward Sapir (1884-1939) and Benjamin
 Lee Whorf (1897-1941). According to this:
 There are no restrictions on the amount and type of
 variation to be expected between languages, inclu-
 ding their semantic structures, and that the
 determining effect of language on thought is total."
 The crux of the issue was
 whether Indianness could be expressed in a foreign
 language.

19. 
 standard, though inordinately simple,use of
indigenous English
 expressions and syntactic deviations have
all been attacked or praised by the critics more for
success in communicating Indianness, a nationalistic
concern, than tør artistic validity.

20. 
Language is main concern .language is major issue and it is
also connected with nationalism .Indian writer uma
parameswaran asserts that writers who are not as rooted in
Hindi culture as the native talents or early writers lack an
Indian sensibility and their portyal of Indian reality is not
competent .
 J.s lall in a review of jhabvala novel heat and dust 1975
said :
 Mrs jhabvala marriage to an Indian is not an automatic
key to an understanding of India .This is only partly
about India .it hardly matters clearly it is written for
markets that play
pg 8,9,10
khadija Gulzar

21. 
 This is not true for though marrying an Indian does
not make one a novelist talent does . And Mrs
jhabvala has the rare talent for portraying society
realistically.Her novel The nature of passion 1956for
instance is one of those rare work of fiction which
contains deep insight into the mind of indians of
different classes and backgroundsTraditions and
culture is more important.

22. 
 Probably the most chauvinistic criterion invoked for
the evaluation of literature is a writers attitude
towards the Indian leader Gandhi
 The state of criticism in third world literature in
English and that of India literature in particular has
been dealt with at such length to point cut that the
nationalistic pitfall in particular and non literary
criteria in general must be avoided in the criticism of
any literature

23. 
 Who coined the term Third World literature?
 theorist Fredric Jameson
 In 1986, the American literary critic and theorist
Fredric Jameson published an essay in the journal
Social Text titled “Third-World Literature in the Era
of Multinational Capitalism,” and the controversy it
sparked became one the major intellectual events of
the 1980s

24. 
 Journal of commonwealth literature has been
published a brief note followed by biography of
Pakistani writings in English and other languages
 This biographies has been written by Syed Ali
Ashraf in the beginning and then than Maya Jamil
and later Alamgir Hashmi started writing it .
 Unfortunately the note is hardly analytical nor is it
meant to be . What is worse is that it is also
incomplete since many publications in English are
obscure and it is almost impossible for anyone to
keep track of all that is being printed in the country

25. 
 Yet no Pakistani university offers a course in either
Pakistani or even in African west Indian and lndian
literature in English.
 University of Peshawar in it's journal entitled The
journals of the English literary club has been
published the work of Pakistani writers and even
critical articles and reviews of these work
 Because of this lack of criticism in the history of
Pakistani literature in English has yet not been
written through such histories exist for other third
world literature in English