Our essential reads for the week
Metropolitan Pakistan has seen a coffee-related boom of sorts over the last five years. But what does this tell us about the wider social and cultural changes of urban Pakistan, beyond banal observations about ‘consumer tastes’?
In the race to package and promote South Asian fashion to the world, India is sprinting ahead, often with items that have roots on both sides of the border. These crafts were never confined by the Radcliffe Line, but their identity politics now are. Aamir Ali Shah explores the fight for claiming textile heritage and the role of GI tags.
The onslaught of ‘nostalgia-core’ makes Saba Imtiaz wonder if there’s a moratorium on new ideas across artistic and commercial spheres; if so, why?
Urdu may be ours, but it is becoming increasingly unfamiliar to our children, our cities and our lives
Dalrymple reframes ‘Partition’ as the proper noun in the South Asian imaginary into a verb
To understand our cultural attitudes around sexual intimacy, one need only look at contemporaryPakistani dramas, and how they push the boundaries of what is deemed acceptable
This year’s Women’s Prize winner fills an important gap in contemporary histories of Afghanistan, but leaves the reader...
The daily horrors that animate the interior lives of women find themselves externalised as the uncanny
The political imaginaries of Iran’s most lauded literary voices in the West
Dalrymple reframes ‘Partition’ as the proper noun in the South Asian imaginary into a verb
At the center of Mina Malik’s 𝘙𝘰𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘵 is a woman who, cleansed by grief and anger, can finally see clearly
Leftist intellectuals and the creator of Ainak Wala Jin have more in common than we may assume
When enshittification comes for your favourite bookstore
Witches continue to inspire literary imaginations, whether in the form of supernatural entities (with or without cauldro...
By Saba Imtiaz
By Umair Javed
By Maryam Jillani
By Haroon Sethi
By Manahil Tahira
Stories, Cultures, and Landscapes
Reflecting on the Zeitgeist
The distinction between resistance and supporting a cause
Aug 11, 2026
A reflection on the compliant and contrarian ways in which women persist
Aug 10, 2026
The distinction between resistance and supporting a cause
Aug 11, 2026
A reflection on the compliant and contrarian ways in which women persist
Aug 10, 2026
Some tasks are written for the sons of the house, such as getting dahi from the corner store, or killing the odd rat found scurrying around the house. What happens when the son in question tries to outsource the hit job?
What happens when it’s your parents’ dream home being realised (and their life savings spent) and you’re the default project manager?
Millennial women, especially those wanting to be mothers, were once promised they could have it all: a solid career, a perfect family and enough time to spare to work on their own selves. So why is it that millennial women, especially mothers, are constantly exhausted and burnt out?
Following the passing of her maternal grandmother, Dur e Aziz Amna reflects on grief, love and rituals of mourning in this heartfelt elegy.
SPORTS
Shoaib Akhtar, an era-defining bowler whose run-ups became the stuff of cricketing legend for how they commanded the emo...
SPORTS
Luka Modrić redefined the art of football in a way few players have.
At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, the European Union and its leading member states were no longer willing to quietly acquiesce to Washington’s demands under President Donald Trump.
Trump’s interest in Greenland is not new. During his first term, his suggestion that the United States should ‘buy’ Greenland was widely mocked, dismissed as a diplomatic oddity. Ahmad Jamal Wattoo looks at the strategic logic beneath the spectacle.
Debt-for-climate swaps are no longer boutique transactions, but are being pitched as a central tool to help countries break free from the vicious cycle of debt distress and climate vulnerability. Can the G77+China succeed in making them more than symbolic, clever deals on the margins?
