Financial help sought to promote book writing

HARIPUR: The speakers at a literary gathering on Sunday urged the philanthropists and bibliophiles to come forward and contribute their time and resources to promote the dying culture of book writing and publishing.

The literary gathering was organised in connection with the third anniversary of Bazm-e-Musanifeen Hazara at the Haripur Press Club.The speakers said that the soil of Hazara has the credit of producing renowned scientists, religious scholars, lawyers, politicians, three services chiefs, journalists, poets, artists and writers. “However, the field of literature, especially prose writers, remained ignored and despite having a treasure trove about the local languages some of them at the verge of extinction, traditions, tribes, history and heritage, the field of literature remained ignored,” said Dr Chan Mubarak, chief organiser, Bazm-e- Musanifeen Hazara (BMH).

Maulana Azam Qadri, chief pattern of the BMH, in his speech said that the culture of book writing and reading was on the decline across the country but the digitisation of content has made it a bit easy for the booklovers and researchers to access the material of their choice as the most of writers were now opting for PDF version of their books. However, he said the intellectual property piracy was going unchecked and the authors were getting discouraged.

Senior journalist and poet Younas Majaz said that the digitisation of literature has made the job easy for the writers. He urged the young volunteers skilled at digitistation of written content must extend their support to senior writers.

BMH’s secretary Mufti Inayatur Rehman Hazarvi said that the literary body, which was formed three years back in Mansehra, was now expanded to all the eight districts of Hazara.Qamar Zaman Awan, Kareem Khan Awan, Naseem Awan, Shehzad Ali, Sohail Ahmed Sohail, Javed Aman and Malik Naveed, president International Writers Forum, were among those who spoke to the participants.