In an interview on Pakistan

A Sportsman’s Sketches takes us away from Pakistan. How does this fit into your choices?

The Pakistan in my stories describes the fading feudal structures and that’s the same with Turgenev. What you see in Pakistan these days is a country which is transforming incredibly rapidly. If you live somewhere like England which is very stable by comparison it’s very difficult to understand how quickly things are changing in Pakistan. I was living there for a year and just came back and this whole thing that is happening in Swat burst out on us. Suddenly the country rapidly changed and I’ve become very aware just how grave the threat to that part of the country is. And these surprises come at you all the time. The country is like living in a film that’s on fast forward.

And you think the people are changing as well, don’t you?

Yes, they are. For example, with the locals who live in the area of my farm – their views regarding the Taliban have completely changed in the past year. Before, they were very sympathetic towards them. There’s a local madrasa, a religious school, which is producing wahhabi, Islamic fighters, and people were pretty sympathetic towards them. That was because of a lack of confidence in the government and a belief that the Americans shouldn’t be in Pakistan. They also thought these fighters were fundamentally OK. They were religious and people were sympathetic to that. But, because of all the violence around, that has changed and some people are taking a much dimmer view of the Taliban. People get jerked around and their thoughts, ideas and feelings about who’s up and who’s down change incredibly quickly.

Ten years ago the political structure in my area was entirely different to what it is now. There was a settled group of people who had been running things for a long time. But then people in the towns and cities suddenly had more power. There is this new governing class, which derives their power from money which they have made in business and they are in the process of replacing the old land-owning powers.

And how does A Sportsman’s Sketches fit into that?

Turgenev is describing a feudal system which is very similar to the one I describe in my book. It’s very hierarchical. Also, I think it’s a sympathetic portrayal of the peasants, a class of people who had never before been described with that degree of intimacy. Apparently the Tsar at the time, Alexander the Third said that one of the factors that motivated him to abolish serfdom was reading this book. It made a huge splash at the time. And that’s because it was much more difficult not to grant these people more rights when you’d put a human face on them. And I hope that my book does the same. I am describing groups of people like the electrician on the farm and the poor servant woman who haven’t really been represented in Pakistani literature before. I don’t have any political intentions but I hope at least I can give them a voice.