When I started reading The Return of the Butterfly, I remember being amazed and thinking: This is Pakistani literature? This is Pakistani literature. Moni Mohsin’s book may be typed in English, but it’s written in so much more.
Do not be fooled by the heels on the cover or the seemingly illiterate, housewife narrator: this is a serious story about politics. Moni Mohsin’s writing is full of translated Urdu expressions, Urdu phrases written in transliteration, and such a beautiful Pakistani butchering of the English language, that I am in awe. As a writer, this book makes me brave, and here’s why. It tells me not to try and fit myself into expectations of what and especially how an English-writer should write.
As a teacher of the English language I have been saying this for years: stop trying to speak ‘correct’ English and start using English to express your self. You are who you are. You grew up where you did, and your parents did what they did, and there’s no sense – or merit – in trying to hide or change that. That’s what Butterfly does in The Return of the Butterfly. She speaks her English – even when she is saying denuded instead of deluded, and Bangcock (wince) instead of Bangkok – and she does so without apology. She is often politically incorrect, but she is unapologetically herself. And I think we could all learn from this, especially writers writing in a language they are frequently reminded does not ‘belong’ to them.
From this book, I have learnt Urdu, I have learnt about Pakistani English, and of a particularly difficult time in Pakistani history, when religious extremism actually threatened to dominate. I learnt to write brave and being your unique self and not being afraid to write in a form a lot of people would not understand. I learnt that only I decide what belongs to me, and what I belong to. The Return of the Butterfly taught me to stop explaining myself, and for that, Moni Mohsin has my gratitude.
Written by : raaziasajid
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