From the Foreword: This book contains my essays and reviews of Urdu books published, mostly, in The News on Sunday and some of them in Dawn. I began writing in English some four years ago, quite accidentally. What made me subscribe frequently to The News on Sunday particularly was the realisation that there was a dearth of writings in English on how Urdu literature had tackled the issue of modernity and coloniality. I believe modern Urdu literature cannot be understood and properly evaluated without taking stock of its nature of engagement with coloniality and its multiple forms. Colonial modernity is the proper context of modern Urdu literature. Modern Urdu poetry, fiction and criticism adopted and sometimes devised host of ways and strategies to confront colonial modernity ranging from assimilation to defying to refraining to corroborating. So, most of the essays, in one way or other, deal with the trinity of Urdu, modernity and coloniality. As all of these essays were written for newspapers so the author was bound to abide by the word limit set by the editors. From Farah Zia (former editor The News on Sunday):

1. Urdu Literature ? Modern Urdu