I thought the English-language novel didn’t have space in it for a writer from Pakistan – until I discovered Bapsi Sidhwaīapsi Sidhwa. It was the first time I recognised how dangerously wrong a book can be, even when you find yourself completely immersed in it. I was completely drawn in by it but I also understood how abhorrent its take on history and race was. I read it when I was 12 – so just pre-teen. I entered that novel in much the same way as Lucy enters the wardrobe and emerges into Narnia, everything became wondrous when just minutes before it had been dull. I was in a room full of adults, bored, when I first noticed this book with an appealing title on a shelf and drew it out. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. I have a clear memory of looking at words on the page beneath the illustration of a flying car. I was probably three or so, in Karachi, and according to my parents I couldn’t yet read but had learned the book by heart so knew when to tell them to turn the page. An illustrated version of Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
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