Libraries, reading habits and publishing in Pakistan

"Egypt writes, Lebanon publishes and Iraq reads", was the mantra that used to succinctly describe the publishing industry and reading habits in the Arab world.

The problem with this mantra was that it was considered a bit trite. Then a survey a few years ago added a new dimension, rendering the old notions outdated, too. The survey revealed that the UAE was the 'most reading country in the Arab world', with Lebanon following closely behind. In the realm of publishing, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE had risen from the ranks to join Lebanon. As for writing skills, though Egypt's supremacy was unchallenged till then, according to the survey, the 'most reading Arab countries,' such as the UAE, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, might pose some threat in the future, as these countries had left Egypt far behind in the field of reading.


During the communist era, Soviet Union claimed to be the most reading country in the world, but that indeed included a plethora of books on communist ideology. The Soviets used to publish translations in many languages and I still remember buying some Urdu books, printed in the USSR, from a roadside bookseller dealing in second-hand books. One of them was Urdu translation of Maxim Gorky's 'Mother'. But that was some two decades ago. Those translations in many languages meant for overseas readers might have qualified the Soviets as 'the most printing' nation but not 'the most reading' nation of the world.


Yet one feels the Soviets must have ranked much high on the table that reflected most reading nations, as in the Soviet era, for Moscow's population of about eight million, there were some 4,000 libraries.

After reading these statistics about the Arab world and Moscow, I naturally thought of Pakistan, particularly Karachi. How many libraries do we have in Karachi for a population of about twice as much? And the mantra for Pakistan could be something like: Lahore writes, Lahore publishes and Lahore reads.


As for reading habits in Pakistan, a Gallup survey revealed a few years ago that about 25 per cent of Pakistanis read. The optimistic survey concluded that it was quite encouraging, considering the literacy rate that was hovering around 55 per cent at that time. Some believe that since then the literacy rate has gone up to 59 per cent in our beloved country. But the 'definition' of literacy is quite different in Pakistan and it says that anybody who has elementary reading skills, such as ability to read newspaper headlines, should be considered literate. In other words, the real literacy rate is much lower than the perceived 59 per cent. That makes it all the more encouraging and optimistic.