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His first novel, '''''The Temple-Goers''''' (2010) was also very well received; it was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award.
His first novel, '''''The Temple-Goers''''' (2010) was also very well received; it was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award.


A second novel, '''''Noon''''' (2011), was published by Faber & Faber (USA), Picador (UK and India).
A second novel, '''''Noon''''' (2011), has been published by Faber & Faber (USA), Picador (UK and India). It is, for a writer so young, a very incisive and assured novel. It completes what is a trilogy of a sort, even though the first book is not a novel; they all draw from elements of the writer's own turbulent life and complement each other; revealing and adding layers. The episodic structure and spare but fluid prose communicate the jaggedness of the sometimes-main-protagonist/sometimes-narrator, Rehan Tabassum's life. The completeness of 'story' in each episode is set against the deliberately ruptured narrative structure of the novel as a whole, allowing the reader to fill in the gaps. Noon also expresses perhaps more successfully than most non-fiction on the subject, the complexity and contradiction within the societies of India and Pakistan; it reveals the casual cruelty prevalent in one and the perpetually lurking potential for violence in the other. On display in parts of the book is virtuoso storytelling at par with the great Russian writers - the different levels at which wealth and power and talent are at work in a society built on the framework of caste and class; wheels within wheels are laid bare masterfully.

Like Taseer's other two books, there is something ominous about 'Noon'. But a reader's foreboding turns to a kind of baffled amazement once he or she knows the truly shocking way in which the book foreshadows events in the real world. The prologue of Noon has a young man talking about the violent death of his father and it was written by Taseer months ''before'' the assassination of his own father in January this year. His father, the late Governor of Punjab in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards; this along with the subsequent kidnapping of one of the Governor's sons (and Aatish Taseer's half-brother), Shahbaaz Taseer is a demonstration of the religious fanaticism that lurks just below the surface of the Pakistan depicted in 'Noon'.

Yet even while ruthlessly exposing the truths of these two societies, the narrator's voice is notable for never losing its immense compassion. This unique and gifted voice is calmer and wiser in 'Noon' than in either of Taseer's remarkable earlier books. Both of them - 'Stranger to History' and 'The Temple-Goers' - are, in different ways, about a young man in search of himself and in search of some of the bigger truths of the world. With 'Noon' Taseer arrives at maturity, proving that he has found his center and is now in a position to share some of the truths of this world.


==Journalism==
==Journalism==

Revision as of 15:02, 9 October 2013

Aatish Taseer (Born 1980), is British-born writer-journalist, and the son of Indian journalist Tavleen Singh and late Pakistani politician and businessman Salmaan Taseer.[1][2]

Early life

Born in London to a married Salman Taseer and Tavleen Singh. They were never married to each other. Taseer grew up in New Delhi, before going off to a residential school in Kodaikanal.[1] Later he graduated in French and Political Science at Amherst College, Massachusetts.[citation needed]

Career

Taseer has worked for Time Magazine,[3] and as a freelance journalist also written for Prospect magazine,[4] The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Financial Times, TAR Magazine and Esquire.

Books

Taseer has written a highly acclaimed translation of Saadat Hasan Manto's short stories from the original Urdu, Manto: Selected Stories (2008).

His first book Stranger to History : A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands (2009), part memoir-part travelogue, has been translated into more than 14 languages and hailed as a 'must-read' for anyone attempting to understand the Muslim world.[5][6] The book caught the attention of Nobel Laureate Sir V.S. Naipaul, who labelled Taseer 'a young writer to watch'. His first novel, The Temple-Goers (2010) was also very well received; it was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa First Novel Award.

A second novel, Noon (2011), was published by Faber & Faber (USA), Picador (UK and India).

Journalism

Taseer's opinion pieces have garnered both attention and critical appreciation. David Goodhart draws attention to Taseer's piece on feudal Pakistan, Travels with the mango king[7] in his article Prospect’s 10 Most Influential Articles.[8] More recently he wrote a piece on the controversy surrounding the possible construction of the "Ground Zero Mosque" in Manhattan, Tolerance test for New York.[9]

Since his father's assassination on 6 January 2011 Taseer has written with great insight, and in his characteristically simple and lucid prose, about the situation in Pakistan leading up to and following the incident. These pieces go far beyond the immediate events surrounding his father's murder, exposing the bigger phenomena at play in Pakistani society and are remarkable both for how coolheaded and penetrating they are. A piece for the Telegraph [10] published just two days after, extends his view from the incident, providing a broader understanding of what it all means for Pakistan.

On 5 May 2011, a few days after the death of Osama Bin Laden, Taseer wrote a piece in The Financial Times titled "Pakistan’s Rogue Army Runs a Shattered State".[11] It was one of the first pieces of journalism to point to the significance of the fact that Bin Laden had been killed in a Pakistani cantonment town, Abbottabad. In the article Taseer states simply that "he was found in this garrison town because he was the guest of the army." He goes on to unpack the importance of this, saying that the coming-to-light of this fact "represents the moment when perception and reality become one. And what a frightening reality it is: a vast and nuclear-armed military exposed for not just being the enemy of peace in south Asia but probably the ultimate sponsor and protector of terrorism against the west." The piece ends with this damning paragraph: "This then is the background of bin Laden’s death: a shattered country, traumatised and steeped in blood, with a rogue army falling piecemeal into the hands of jihad. After my father’s assassination, I had begun to feel that the birth of this new terrorist state would not be defined by anything so distinct as a takeover or a revolution but by an infiltration so deep that it would soon be impossible to know where Pakistan began and where terrorism ended. This latest news of the army’s guest in Abbottabad suggests the new state is already at hand."

On 16 July 2011 The Wall Street Journal published a piece its editors provocatively, and somewhat misleadingly, titled "Why My Father Hated India".[12] Although Taseer wrote using his father's distaste for all things Indian as an example, or metaphor, the article attempted to explain a much bigger question - a question about Pakistan's unhealthy obsession with India. It argued that "to understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge — its hysteria — it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan", he went on to say that "In the absence of a true national identity, Pakistan defined itself by its opposition to India." As could be expected, the article ignited a firestorm that consumed internet chat-rooms and set Twitter ablaze. The article remained the most emailed and commented-on on the WSJ website[13] for days and at the end of July it was the by far the most emailed of the month.

The controversy spread when, following an exchange on Twitter between senior Pakistani journalist, Ejaz Haider and Indian Member of Parliament and former Indian Union Minister and Under-secretary at the UN, Shashi Tharoor. Haider wrote a column in The Express Tribune titled "Aatish’s Personal Fire",[14] accusing Taseer of employing "everything except the kitchen sink in order to construct a supposedly linear reality". His central argument was that India - with its massive army arrayed along its border with Pakistan - left Pakistan with no choice but to be deeply concerned with its every move. Tharoor rose to Aatish Taseer's defense; writing in the Deccan Chronicle, in a piece titled "Delusional liberals",[15] he quoted Taseer's original piece extensively and said in general he "admired the young man’s writing", and felt he had made "his point in language that was both sharp [...] heartfelt and accurate". He said that in their vitriolic response to Taseer's piece Pakistan's liberals had exposed themselves and took on Haider point-for-point, saying "that there is not and cannot be an "Indian threat" to Pakistan, simply because there is absolutely nothing Pakistan possesses that India wants." Ejaz Haider subsequently responded to Shashi Tharoor's piece,[16] but the controversy flamed-out after this last salvo.

Personal life

Taseer lives between New Delhi and London. He was previously in a relationship with Lady Gabriella Windsor, daughter of the Prince and Princess Michael of Kent,[2][17] whom he had met when she was an undergraduate at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and he at Amherst College, Massachusetts.

Works

  • Manto Selected Stories. Random House. ISBN 81-8400-049-9.
  • Stranger to History: A Son's Journey Through Islamic Lands, McClelland & Stewart. 2009. ISBN 0-7710-8425-0.
  • Translated from the English: Terra Islamica. Auf der Suche nach der Welt meines Vaters, translated by Rita Seuß, Verlag C.H. Beck, München 2009
  • The Temple-Goers, Viking. 2010. ISBN 978-0-670-91850-8.
  • Noon, Faber & Faber in the US; by Picador in India and the UK. 2011. ISBN 978-0-86547-858-9.

Awards

  • "2010 Costa First Novel Award shortlist" for The Temple-Goers.[18][19][20][21][22] The Costa Book Awards started, in 1971, as the Whitbread Literary Awards; from 1985 to 2006 they were known as the Whitbread Book Awards.

Interviews

References

  1. ^ a b Lunch with BS: Aatish Taseer: Passage through Islam Kishore Singh/ New Delhi, Business Standard, 14 April 2009.
  2. ^ a b Uk News The Times, 8 December 2004.
  3. ^ "Say 'Cheese'!" by Aatish Taseer Sunday, TIME, 11 January 2004.
  4. ^ Aatish Taseer article Prospect, July 2005.
  5. ^ Book Review The guardian, Saturday, 14 March 2009.
  6. ^ Book Review The Independent, Friday, 17 April 2009.
  7. ^ "Travels with the mango king". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  8. ^ David Goodhart  —  23 November 2010 (23 November 2010). "Prospect's 10 most influential articles". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 28 September 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "Tolerance test for New York". Prospect Magazine. 20 October 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  10. ^ Taseer, Aatish (8 January 2011). "The killer of my father, Salman Taseer, was showered with rose petals by fanatics. How could they do this?". The Daily Telegraph. London.
  11. ^ Pakistan’s rogue army runs a shattered state. The Financial Times (login required).
  12. ^ Taseer, Aatish (16 July 2011). "Why My Father Hated India". The Wall Street Journal.
  13. ^ "Wall Street Journal home page (search required)". The Wall Street Journal.
  14. ^ Haider, Ejaz (18 July 2011). Aatish’s personal fire. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 18 August 2013
  15. ^ Deccan Chronicle [dead link]
  16. ^ Haider, Ejaz (16 July 2011). It’s not just Mr Tharoor!. The Express Tribune. Retrieved 18 August 2013
  17. ^ Aatish Taseer, Lady Windsor part ways: Report DNA India - 29 October 2006
  18. ^ Costa Book Awards[dead link]
  19. ^ Mark Brown, arts correspondent (16 November 2010). "Guardian, UK". London: Guardian. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  20. ^ "The Independent, UK". London: Independent.co.uk. 17 November 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  21. ^ "The Times of India". The Times of India. 18 November 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2011.
  22. ^ "BBC, Radio 4: 'Front Row'". Bbc.co.uk. 16 November 2010. Retrieved 28 September 2011.

External links

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