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Brown History · Jul 7, 2026

A Welsh Ghost in Pakistani Literature

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Brown History · Brown History

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This is a rare vintage poster for the National Dance Ensemble from Pakistan when they made their grand debut performance in New York City in 1973 at the Hulu Theatre in Madison Square Garden. The show featured celebrated Kathak dancer Nahid Siddiqui who rose to fame in the 70s but in the late 70s, martial law was declared in Pakistan and dancing was banned. She left Pakistan and relocated to London but was told she couldn't dance anywhere in the world without the permission from the government of Pakistan. Siddiqui defied these rules though and continued to dance. "How can you ban beauty?" asked Siddiqui. (Available now as print)
Sara Suleri’s memoir is celebrated as one of Pakistan’s defining literary works, yet hidden within its pages is a forgotten story of Wales and the afterlives of empire.
Sara Suleri Goodyear was a Pakistan-born American author and professor of English at Yale University. She is most renowned for her seminal 1989 memoir, Meatless Days, which is widely considered a foundational milestone in postcolonial literature

“Leaving Pakistan” Sara Suleri writes “was, of course, tantamount to giving up the company of women”. This is the arresting first line of ‘Meatless Days’, a seminal English language memoir from Sara Suleri, a Pakistani writer and former Professor of Women’s Literature in Yale. ‘Meatless Days’ has become a postcolonial classic, and widely taught within the South Asian subcontinent. Henry Louis Gates Jr called her “a Proust in Pakistan” in the Voice Literary Supplement, a quote that has haunted Meatless Days since its publication in 1989.

Read the original on brownhistory.substack.com

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