The novel, The Forlorn Lover, marks an excellent addition to the English literature being produced in Pakistan but in its own way.
This was the crux of the views of the critics at the launch of the novel The Forlorn Lover, authored by Hussain Haider Zaidi, at Iqbal Hall, Quaid-e-Azam Library, Lahore on August 6, 2026. The speakers included Athar Tahir, a former federal secretary and an eminent literati; Dr Waseem Anwar, Professor of English Literature and Director of International Centre for Pakistani Writing in English at the Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore; Kashif Manzoor, Director-General Libraries in the Punjab government, and the author.
Kashif Manzoor described The Forlorn Lover as gothic. The novel asks the perennial questions about love, life, society, and death. Unlike most other contemporary Pakistani novels in English, The Forlorn Lover doesn’t talk about marginalization of Pakistani expatriates living in the West or colonialism. Instead, it does deep into internal existential conflicts. The book starts calmy but then one thing happens that turns everything else upside down.
The romance turns dark, the mystery gets deeper, and the tensions builds up. And slowly this feeling of unease settles over the whole book. The plot keeps coming back to two things: suffering and death. Is suffering part of life? Is it unavoidable? Are suffering and life synonymous? And does death represent the only escape from suffering? Zaidi doesn’t pretend to answer these questions He just puts them before the reader, he said.
Dr Waseem Anwar described The Forlorn Lover as a nice blend of the global and the local. The novel raises existential issues that are common to the humanity, such as suffering, meaning of life and death; but he puts these global issues in the Pakistani context. The central question in the novel is why a young woman named Humaira Raza committed suicide just after her engagement to the man she loved. And here the reader can feel the burden of being a woman in the Pakistani society. This cultural context of The Forlorn Lover, said Dr Waseem Anwar, is one aspect that sets it apart from other contemporary works of English fiction authored by Pakistanis.
He also observed that the author used the dialogue, as opposed to the narrative, as the principal vehicle for advancing the plot, which seemed to be a deliberate technique as it fit in nicely with the philosophical tone of the novel. However, at times the reader might feel that the role of the narrative was unduly short-shrifted.
Athar Tahir, who chaired the book launch, described The Forlorn Lover as a welcome addition to the English literature being produced in Pakistan. He congratulated the author on adroitly combining a mystery thriller with existential philosophy. He noted that culture, including arts and literature, was the key strength of a nation and the essence of its soft power. He underlined the need for adequately projecting this power overseas.
In his remarks, Hussain Haider Zaidi introduced the major influences that prompted him to write The Forlorn Lover. He said that a work of fiction must raise some of the perennial questions about life without seeking to answer each and every question and without losing the interest of the reader. Philosophy or psychology are part of literature but they are not the whole of it, he said.
