ANOTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

Why is it that, while the world fell in love with Indian novelists, Pakistani novelists failed to achieve the same high profile? And is the situation changing? In the second of our series on the legacy of Indian and Pakistani independence, Kamila Shamsie looks at the history of the English-language novel in Pakistan in the seond of a series of articles this week from the Guardian.

Pic shows Mohsin Hamid: Booker longlisted novelist and at the forefront of the new wave of Pakistani writing. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe

The story of the Pakistani novel in English starts with tragedy and unrealised potential. In 1948, within a year of partition, 36-year-old Mumtaz Shahnawaz was killed in a plane crash, leaving behind the first draft of her partition novel, A Heart Divided. Her family published it in the 1950s, but the question of what the novel might have been had she worked on it further remains unanswered.

Use this link to the Guardian to read the full story.