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In the IssueJune 15, 2013

Summer 2013 — The “Freedom” Issue

journey of Goldfish

Artwork: “Journey of a Goldfish” by Ebineyland

In its Summer 2013 issue, The Missing Slate published some of the best contemporary Pakistani fiction writers and poets, in both English and Urdu (as translations). This issue brings a certain laxness to the format we’ve rigidly adopted for the last year by bringing our complete issue back onto the web, as individual (and shareable) pieces, in addition to our downloadable digital editions. We hope you enjoy this new approach…

Onward!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITORS’ LETTERS

A Word from the Editor-in-Chief
Maryam Piracha

A Word from the Creative Director
Moeed Tariq

Introduction to the Pakistani Writers & Poets
Muneeza Shamsie

POETRY

unclassified i
Waqas Khwaja

The Things
Kyla Pasha

Noor-e-Chashm
Mavra Rana Tanweer

Lullabies and Killers
Kyla Pasha

i wait for images to crystallize
Ilona Yusuf

Empty Bench / Khaali Bench
Azra Abbas (tr. by Muhammad Umar Memon)

The Skull of the Chief Architect
Afzal Ahmed Syed (tr. by Musharraf Ali Farooqi)

Alone As I Am / Jaise Main Tanha Hun
Azra Abbas (tr. by Muhammad Umar Memon)

Grandfather
Mehvash Amin

Mr. and Mrs. Agelast
Mavra Rana Tanweer

Untitled
Ilona Yusuf

Author’s Prayer / دعائے سُخنور Ilya Kaminsky
translated into the Urdu by Ilyas Babar Awan

Karachi
Mehvash Amin

Whose Grave is it that Lies by the Juniper Tree?
Afzal Ahmed Syed (tr. by Musharraf Ali Farooqi)

FICTION

The Rose
Abdullah Hussein (tr. by Muhammad Umar Memon)

Terminator: Attack of the Drone
Mohsin Hamid

The Escape
Kamila Shamsie

The Tree at the Limit
Aamer Hussein

Lucky Vikki
Muhammad Umar Memon

The Poor Dears
Hassan Manzar (tr. by Muhammad Umar Memon) 

ESSAYS & FEATURES

Free Falling
Maria Amir

Manto’s Nuances of Freedom
Sana Hussain

To Reality and Beyond!
Aaron Grierson

SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight Poet: Ilona Yusuf
Spotlight Writer: Aamer Hussein

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Next articleFall 2013 — The “Politics” Issue

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This House is an African House

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Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

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A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

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Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

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What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

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Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

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Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

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Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

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Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

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Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

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“the things I long for are edited out of movies. maybe / they just exist, even less than perfection, like love// and rain…” Poem of the Week (April 14), by Carla Jones.

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One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at [email protected].

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

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Lucky Vikki

Part of our special feature on contemporary Pakistani writers in the ninth issue, Muhammad Umar Memon's piece translated from the...

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