The blogosphere is now a fast growing world in Pakistan. There are two broad categories of literary blogs -- one that includes edited magazines like "Asian Cha", "Filter", "Our Stories", "Feminist Review", "Brainripples" etc, and the other contains unedited ones.
Magazine blogs have increased since several layouts (templates) are available, particularly on Wordpress. Getting a blog to your own name (e.g ammarawrites.com) requires a meagre $10 on blogger.com. Therefore, some published journals substitute websites with blogs like "The Toronto Quarterly", "California Quarterly" etc.
A blog can focus on anything, from historical fiction to Haikus -- any topic and theme is freely available. For example, the blog magazine "Indivisible" focuses on Asian American poets; "The 365 days of novel writing" exclusively reports its bloggers' novels in progress to encourage other writers.
There are two kinds of writers' blogs -- amateurs and professionals. Many authors blog occasionally for larger sites, such as the Papercuts blog on The New York Times (Martin Amis, Jhumpa Lahiri), or websites like Amazon.com (Khalid Hosseini), New Yorker.com (Susan Orleans), Chicago University blog (Ha Jin).
Pakistani authors who blog include Muhammad Hanif, Bina Shah and Nadeem Farooq Paracha on wordpress.com, Mohsin Hamid for The New York Times, Bapsi Sidhwa on her own official site.
Urdu blogs connect the Urdu diaspora through blogs like "Urdu India", "Delhi Urdu" and "Baad-e-Naseem". Desi blog magazines like "Pak Tea House" present Pakistani Urdu and English poetry, short stories, translations and reviews.
There are innumerable poetry blogs but some such as "Poets who Blog" and "Poet in Residence" have a respectable following. Traditionally, poets find it hard to print their work. Potential Keats or Eliot can emerge through these online avenues.
Serial blog novels are now a rising phenomenon. The success of "Julie & Julia", a serial blog novel was heartening. No editors, agents or publishers were needed in this "push button publishing". Unknown novelists can attract big readerships and eventually publishers, like the author of the serial novel Bridge Chronicles.
Interestingly, blog awards are also granted these days, the most prestigious being Deutsche Welle's International Weblog Award which has been operative since 2004. These awards are selected by bloggers, journalists and experts worldwide in 11 languages and voted online. Pakistan Blog awards were recently introduced. These include categories like Best Humour, Culture, Diarist, Local Humour, Satire etc.
Blogs represent authors from oppressed communities, like the gay author from Karachi whose blog "Tuzk-e-Jallali" was quoted by The Times of India, "Wild Abandon" by a bipolar disorder patient and a prostitute's blog named "My Secret Life as a Former Prostitute". One of these could be the future Anne Frank.
Blogs form a permanent and global footprint of Pakistani literature. Their influence will only increase in the future.
This piece was first published in The News in 2010.
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