Zulfikar Ghose 1935-

Pakistani novelist, poet, essayist, short story writer, literary critic, and
autobiographer.

The following entry provides an overview of Ghose's career through 1996. For
further information on his life and works, see CLC, Volume 42.

Often experimental in form and theme, Ghose's works are infused with
realism, magic-realism, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory to create a
metaphysical reality. He frequently employs mimetic strategies within his
writing to force the reader to re-examine the purpose of the text. Ghose
implicitly challenges the reader to acknowledge that storyline and language
are secondary to a piece of writing and are merely tools the author
manipulates to convey his message. His work often expresses the viewpoint
of a culturally alienated individual and relates not only to his own sense of
displacement from his homeland, but suggests a wider response to life in a
post-colonial society.

Biographical Information

Ghose was born in 1935 in Sialkot. At the time of his birth, Sialkot was a part
of India, but after the partition of India in 1947, the city became part of
Pakistan. Although his family is Muslim, in 1942 they moved to Bombay, a
primarily Hindu city. At the time of the partition and India's subsequent
independence from Britain, Muslim-Hindu relations became violently unstable.
In 1952 Ghose and his family moved to England. He attended secondary
school in Chelsea and in 1955 enrolled in the University of Keele. At Keele he
was introduced to fellow poets B. S. Johnson and John Fuller and also to “The
Group”—a collective of poets that included Peter Porter, Anthony Smith,
George MacBeth, and Peter Redgrove. Ghose received his B.A. in 1959 and
began working as a sports journalist, part-time literary critic, and teacher, all
the while submitting poems to periodicals. In 1964 he published his first
collection of poetry, The Loss of India,as well as a collection of short stories
written with B. S. Johnson, Statement against Corpses. He wrote his
autobiography, Confessions of a Native-Alien(1965) at the age of thirty; his
first novel, The Contradictions (1966), was released a year later. In 1969
Ghose accepted a professorship at the University of Texas, Austin, a position
he still holds today.

Major Works

In much of his poetry Ghose examines the theme of the outsider seeking his
place in the world. The Loss of India focuses on the bittersweet nostalgia
Ghose feels for his homeland despite his fondness for life in the West. The
poems in this collection are autobiographical in theme and contain many
references to nature. The poems in Jets from Orange (1967) similarly evoke
impressions of movement and rootlessness, but focus more on change and
industry rather than nature. In The Violent West (1972), Ghose records his
observations of his new homeland, Texas, and is increasingly introspective
regarding his displacement from the East. The poems in this collection are
more experimental in form and style than those in his previous collections. A
Memory of Asia: New and Selected Poems (1984) and Selected
Poems (1991) provide an overview of Ghose's poetry.

The theme of cultural dislocation is dominant in Ghose's first novel, The

Contradictions, in which an English woman is unable to find her place, either
in her homeland or in the unfamiliar society of India, where her husband is
stationed. In his next novel, The Murder of Aziz Khan (1967), Ghose broadens
his range of characters and concerns to relate a story of a Pakistani farmer's
unsuccessful attempt to resist three unscrupulous brothers from usurping his
land. Ghose's fascination with the enduring human spirit is also evident in his
acclaimed Brazilian Trilogy, which spans four centuries of Brazilian history.
The first volume, The Incredible Brazilian: The Native (1972), recounts the
adventures of Gregório, the son of a rich plantation owner, and provides a
vivid portrait of seventeenth-century Brazil. Gregório appears again in The
Beautiful Empire(1975), which follows his life through a succession of
triumphs and failures during the late 1800s, a time of change and
development in Brazil. The vision of Brazil as a tempestuous, vibrant
environment is also present in the last volume of the trilogy, A Different
World (1978), in which Gregório reappears as a revolutionary in a
contemporary setting. Ghose returns to an English locale in Crump's
Terms (1975), a fanciful novel in which a schoolteacher reminisces about the
events of his life in stream-of-consciousness prose that sometimes takes the
form of dialogue with his students. Hulme's Investigations into the Bogart
Script (1981) is even more unconventional, combining a variety of narrative
styles and techniques in an exploration of language, words, and their
meaning. Ghose's next two novels closely resemble the Brazilian trilogy in
tone and setting. A New History of Torments (1982) is the story of a South
American ranch family whose tranquility is permanently disturbed by a curse
brought on by the father's affair with a young woman. Don Bueno (1983) also
involves a family curse, this one handed down from generation to generation,
and it, too, is a vivid, epic tale set in South America. Ghose again addresses
exile and displacement in Figures of Enchantment (1986), a novel that is also
set in South America and is a rewriting of William Shakespeare's The
Tempest. In The Triple Mirror of the Self (1992) the setting is split among
South America, England, and pre-partitioned India. The main focus of the
novel is the quest by one man to uncover the mystery surrounding a partial
autobiography of a man with whom he is merely acquainted. The story
proceeds in reverse chronological order and the answer to the mystery lies in
India.

Ghose has also published two collections of short stories, Statement against
Corpses (1964) and Veronica and the Gongora Passion: Stories, Fictions,
Tales, and One Fable (1998), and an autobiography Confessions of a Native-
Alien. His critical volumes Hamlet, Prufrock, and Language (1978), The
Fiction of Reality(1984), The Art of Creating Fiction (1991),
and Shakespeare's Mortal Knowledge(1993), present Ghose's ideas
regarding technique and reality in fiction.

Critical Reception

Ghose is a prolific writer, but his writing is not always widely reviewed
because of the experimental and non-traditional aspects of many of his works.
Ghose's literary criticism has earned praise for his skillful and compelling
presentation of ideas. His earlier poems are characterized by vivid imagery
and nostalgia for India/Pakistan. Many reviewers have also noted the
influence of “The Group” on these early poems and emphasize Ghose's
careful construction and attention to technique. His later poetry is considered
groundbreaking in form and style, imaginative in theme, and focused more on
the art and mechanics of poetry. Commentators praise Ghose's manipulation
of technique to achieve his effects. In his poetry at times the meter or form
abruptly changes to draw attention away from the “story” of the poem and to
lead the reader to focus on the mechanics of the poem, while in fiction Ghose
often uses mimetic ploys that lead nowhere, forcing the reader to rethink the
reality of words versus the reality of the larger story. His fiction is difficult to
classify, but is noted for embodying aspects of post-colonial literature, magic
realism, stream-of-consciousness, fantasy, and allegory. Some commentators
find that Ghose's experimental style detracts from the story and frustrates the
reader, while others applaud these techniques because they engage the
reader to become active in the search for reality in the text. The novels in his
Brazilian trilogy, while less experimental, were more widely reviewed,
garnered higher acclaim, and were accepted by a broader range of
readership. Some critics believe that Ghose's writing is at its best when he
relaxes his form, as in the Brazilian trilogy and in his more recent poetic
endeavors, and when he writes from a more personal point of view, as in The
Triple Mirror of the Self.