As 2014 concludes, Books and Authors takes a look at some of the significant books, writers and trends of the past year. We start the issue with a review of the monograph on artist Asim Butt’s work, followed by Professor Syed Nomanul Haq’s comments on poet Majeed Amjad’s legacy, whose birth centenary was celebrated earlier this year. Another major Urdu literature centenary, marked last month, was of the writer Krishan Chander, and Raza Naeem looks at the celebrated writer’s commitment to social causes. Also in these pages, writer and critic Asif Farrukhi reflects on the Urdu novel, calling 2014 the year of Mirza Athar Baig’s novel, Hasan ki Soorat-e-Haal.

Surveying recent English fiction coming out of Pakistan, Madeline Amelia Clements notes the overt attempt to grapple with social and political events in the region, both historical and contemporary. Meanwhile, Razeshta Sethna explores the continued attention of journalists and analysts on ‘Af-Pak’, predicting that publishers, writers and readers are likely to stay focused on our part of the world for a while yet, even as developments in the Middle East continue to garner more attention in the international media.