avid Waterman’s latest work, History, Memory, Fiction: New Dimensions in Contemporary Pakistani and Kashmiri Writings, offers a compelling critical analysis of contemporary South Asian narratives.

The book’s examination of war, occupation and violence gains renewed urgency in the context of ongoing India-Pakistan tensions. Waterman explores how history and memory intertwine in the creation of narrative, a relationship often overlooked in literary criticism.

Focusing particularly on fiction about Kashmir, he reflects on the human cost of conflict, charting the devastating impact of violence on individual lives. In parallel, he turns to contemporary Pakistani fiction written in English, examining how these works both reflect and interrogate the society that produces them.

David Waterman is a professor at La Rochelle University in France, where he is part of the D2iA research team (Asian Dynamics, Interactions, Interculturality), in collaboration with Bordeaux Montaigne University. He also serves as director of the University’s Asia Pacific Institute and co-director of its PhD programme in the humanities.

Waterman is the author of Where Worlds Collide: Pakistani Fiction in the New Millennium, and continues to contribute significantly to scholarship on Pakistani history, culture and Anglophone literature.

People often grow accustomed to their surroundings, their birthplace, their home and soon begin to overlook the complexities and tensions embedded within them. This kind of deliberate oblivion calls for intervention. That is precisely what David Waterman’s book offers.

Divided into four sections – Part I: Kashmir; Part II: The Personal is Political; Part III: War; and Part IV: Migration – History, Memory, Fiction takes readers on a wide-ranging journey through conflict, transformation and adaptation. This work of literary criticism serves as an attempt to come to terms with the history of place and people and to make sense of a turbulent past.

At the heart of Waterman’s analysis is the transformative power of writing. Every word a writer commits to the page carries with it the potential to reimagine, preserve and reclaim. Waterman examines how literature has contributed to recreating the narrative of a troubled Kashmir; to uncovering forgotten stories from World War II in the Andaman Islands during British and Japanese occupation; and to tracking the evolution of Pakistan-Afghanistan relations, including the role of American intervention.

As Kamila Shamsie notes, “He covers many topical, political and universal issues today, including geopolitics, the quest for a better life and the ecological threats.” Waterman also addresses how pressures of daily life shape exclusion and migration, tracing the historical forces that continue to drive displacement. His exploration of movement, change and globalisation offers a lens through which to understand many of the issues that define the present.

What is particularly commendable about Waterman’s book is his painstaking effort to bring method to the madness. In order to understand ourselves, we must first make sense of our histories. What is especially compelling is the malleable nature of historical narrative; it can be erased, revised or reimagined. This might sound implausible, but it is true. The book under discussion is a testament to that very notion. As Hayden White observes, “the historical, unlike the biological past, is not a given; it has to be constructed.”

This idea opens up a space for nations to reshape identities and redefine collective memory. The “grey zone” between history and fiction becomes fertile ground for the reworking of narratives. I recall a debate I once had with a “visiting” coordinator at an elite school in 2019, centred on whether memoirs, forms of history, should be seen as blends of fact and fiction. What followed was a barrage of simplistic, didactic views intended to reinforce binary thinking in students. In contrast, Waterman offers a more nuanced perspective: “Memory, like the historical record, is never complete, always containing only fragments and traces… even the most realistic memoirs will contain fictional elements as inferences and interpretations.”

The book’s four sections provide a detailed critical analysis of works including An Isolated Incident by Soniah Kamal, The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed, The Upstairs Wife by Rafia Zakaria, Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam, Snuffing Out the Moon by Osama Siddique and The Miraculous True History of Nomi Ali by Uzma Aslam Khan.

This collection of essays is both insightful and a significant contribution to the anti-war narrative. Beyond grappling with survivor’s guilt, it proposes healing through interconnected histories and critical reflection on the inevitability of violence, an approach that seeks to de-traumatise victims of war, conflict and occupation. Waterman adopts what Eric Prieto describes as an “activist” approach to space, particularly in addressing the contested history of Kashmir. “For Kashmir, there is always an Indian and a Pakistani version of everything.” This perpetual state of confusion, so familiar to generations in the region, is powerfully illustrated through allegorical realism in The Collaborator. A close reading of the book denounces the brutality committed in the name of territorial control: “Bodies after bodies – some huddled together, others forlorn and lonesome – in various stages of decay” (Waheed, p. 7). The book starkly exposes the grim role of social and political forces in shaping Kashmir’s geographic and emotional landscapes.

Migration, whether forced or voluntary, emerges as another urgent and ongoing phenomenon transforming the global society. Personal and political displacements often reflect systemic failures and the weaponisation of history as a political tool demands unmasking. Waterman argues for the inclusion of women’s voices in expanding historical archives, spotlighting the emotional and cultural impact of migration, particularly the deep sense of isolation it can entail. He also draws attention to the ways in which life writing contributes to the formation of cultural memory through collective consciousness. The convergence of multiple voices, whether social or cultural, lays the groundwork for shared legacies. In an era marked by division and fragmentation, this focus on generational continuity offers a compelling model for preserving cultural memory.

Waterman explores pressing debates around poverty, corruption and the growing scarcity of water, arguing for the adoption of self-help neoliberalism. He reflects on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the military regime of Gen Zia-ul Haq, revealing the interplay of US, Iranian and Saudi interests during the Afghan war, conflicts from which Pakistan stood to profit through foreign investment. The strategy of mapping human terrain as a counterinsurgency tool is examined through his analysis of Nadeem Aslam’s The Wasted Vigil. History, Memory, Fiction is rich with lessons from the past, using fiction as a means to counter historical amnesia and reclaim the act of rewriting history.

History, Memory, Fiction

New Dimensions in

Contemporary Pakistani and Kashmiri Writings

Author: David Waterman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Pages: 154

Price: Rs 850/-

The reviewer is a lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature at Kinnaird College, Lahore