What Happened : Since the discourse on the themes of contemporary Pakistani English language novels began on Twitter a few days ago, Pakistani youngsters have been sharing their own ‘coming of age’ stories on Twitter in the hope that similar experiences would be written or picturized about in modern Pakistani art.
LAST ONE, I PROMISE — a bingo summarizing why i find pakistani literary fiction written in english to be underwhelming and tedious. pic.twitter.com/yUaiA0aAnX
— Zoya Rehman (@pind_wave) April 25, 2021
Pakistani English Literature Bingo: This bingo highlighting the similarities between modern Pakistani literature reflected how these novels share the experiences of a very niche class, not encompassing the experiences of the new generation of Pakistanis navigating their life.
A Pakistani girls coming of age story at 23 when she's first sneaks out with her friends (because her parents are forcing her into marriage) and nearly has an aneurysm from the stress that she might get caught, ruins the outing for everyone and is never invited again.
— OhChiefestAndGreatestOfCalamities (@mustyoumustard) May 2, 2021
Audience Resonates: While a lot of people criticised this statement, many resonated with it. A tweet from @mmindeel shared her experience on how the ‘Bingo’ is the ‘most apt thing she’s seen’ after her experience of reading over 250 Pakistani novels because of her dad’s thesis.
My dad did his PhD thesis on Pakistani novels in English, published between 1947 and 2009. That included over 250 novels, by Pakistani/diaspora writers. Growing up, I read most of them and I SWEAR TO GOD, that bingo is the aptest thing I have seen in my life
— Momina (@mmindeel) April 26, 2021
As a response, youngsters from Pakistan started sharing their own stories about what they think a good coming of age Pakistani novel would be set around.