A book such as this requires the patience of those who deal with its author. So let me begin by thanking all those who have loved and played and talked with me over the past few years for their fortitude and good humor and their only occasional impatience. It has been an extraordinary time, and with the merciful forgetfulness that accompanies the end of a project, and without which the beginning of any new one would be impossible, I’ll say that it was all—every minute of despair and uncertainty, of exhaustion and also the exhilaration that accompanies thinking and reading and writing—worth it.
I am very grateful to all those who have contributed their insights and questions in personal conversation and in more public venues. The English department at Williams College and the comparative literature department at SUNY Buffalo gave me an opportunity to present parts of Chapter 3 and asked challenging and useful questions. Haverford College invited me to present sections from the final chapter. I benefited from conversations with the faculty, participants, and audience. A young Pakistani student asked me a question. The inadequacy of my answer to him continues to push me to think carefully about the questions motivating this book. The graduate students and faculty in the comparative literature department at UCLA were a stimulating audience to whom I presented materials from Chapter 2, as was the audience at the Columbia Literary Theory Seminar and at the boundary 2 conference at UCLA where I presented material from the same chapter.
Stathis Gourgouris shared rigorous thinking, loud laughter, and gave a timely introduction to Helen Tartar, who is amazing and upon meeting whom I realized I was meant to work with her. I’m glad she thought so too. Tim Roberts has also been a terrific and patient editor. Bruce Robbins invited me to speak and to respond at the Columbia Literary Theory Seminar and was a supportive and cheerful interlocutor. David Lloyd asked me an extraordinarily important question one brunch in New York; Marjorie Levinson, in passing and with characteristic ease, made a remarkable, ostensibly throwaway observation over drinks at ACLA in New Orleans. Both had effects that ramified throughout the book. Hiram Perez and Maliha Safri gave talks that helped transform my thinking. Hiram’s ethical intellect and profound decency are an inspiration. Those lingering conversations, in the hallways of the English department at the University of Michigan, with Vivasvan Soni were a terrific boost to thinking. Michael Schoenfeldt made thinking about early modern literature a pleasure. Aamir Mufti gave encouragement and applied good pressure at every step, demanding that I write a better book. Gayatri Spivak provided unobtrusive and profound encouragement at many key moments. Faisal Devji has read the work and been a supportive interlocutor and a great person to laugh with. Eduardo Cadava gave wonderful and characteristically generous feedback on several chapters, and we had some greatly stimulating conversations. Rajeswari Sunder Rajan was very encouraging about the work along the way. Tony Bogues gave quiet and perceptive support and comments.
Those heated conversations over Szechuan food with Christian Parenti have become one of my favorite New York rituals. Samah Selim taught me anew the possibilities of a thinking engagement with the world and joined in the fun of watching bad films. Paul Amar came to a talk as a member of the audience and stayed as a friend and collaborator. He has written to me from every corner of the world with a demand that I present my work better and be better at making sure that I do what I should than just about anyone. There’s steel behind that ever-ready smile. Thank you. Here’s to work over many years and in many places.
Ali Mir has responded to my queries and offered to help at every stage. It took discipline not to take more advantage of him. At a crucial stage, when I was extraordinarily pressed for time, Bilal Hashmi took over the transliterations (all mistakes are mine) and looked up references and did research, making wonderful suggestions along the way.
Fran Bartkowski, Bruce Franklin, Barbara Foley, Jack Lynch, and Laura Lomas have been extraordinary colleagues and friends. All five made settling into work a joy. Having Bruce and Barbara across the hall has been great. I’m tempted to change my teaching schedule just so I can linger in the halls discussing the history of world politics with Bruce again—it’s amazing that either of us got anything done. Laura has been thoughtful and supportive in numerous ways. Jack’s emails have a certain amazing, Augustan craft. Although I haven’t needed to send him a random query for a while, sometimes I just want to make one up to get one of those again. I don’t quite know what to say about Fran. She has been an extraordinary mentor, read every chapter, created an environment where thinking is possible without stress, and has modeled a remarkable collegiality, showing that one does not have to sacrifice tough-mindedness to be a warm and profoundly kind and generous person. Janet Larson was very welcoming when I arrived and made the transition much easier. Gabriel Miller was a supportive interim chair and a principled, funny, and kind presence. Manu Chander and Patricia Akhimie joined the department later; we have had great fun hanging out, and I can’t thank them enough for those rides in. Since Ameer Sohrawardy joined the department, those occasional random jokes in Urdu do light up the corridors. Madelyn Munoz-Bertram is steady as a rock and holds things together. Thank you so very much, Maddy. Thomas Moomjy found some crucial references when I had no time at all. He and Sara Grossman were wonderful TAs. All my students have kept me engaged and (I like to think) honest. My undergraduate students at Newark have been a challenging inspiration. I have loved working with them while writing this book. They have made so much of it worthwhile.
When Unver Shafi gave me permission to use an image of his magnificent painting, The Two Souzas, for the cover of this book, I would have, had joints permitted, turned a whole bunch of cartwheels. Talking to him has made me have to think even harder about painting. I look forward to our future collaborations.
Some teachers cannot be forgotten. Miss Maimoona, the Urdu and class teacher in class 2, way back in Mama Parsi days, left an indelible memory of teacherly grace and kindness on a child recently returned from Singapore, learning to read Urdu for the first time. Mrs. Islam in classes 7 and 8 was insistent and encouraging and still wants to know what I’m doing to live up to her expectations when I go back. I hope she’s not too disappointed. Terry Tyler allowed me to cultivate a joy in language at college. This book takes nothing from my dissertation, except some sentiments from the acknowledgments. Yet I cannot overstate my debt to my teachers at graduate school, William Keach, Stephen Foley, and Neil Lazarus, particularly to Bill (as his students know him). Bill, who permitted all sorts of risk and was delighted when I argued, who is a tough-minded reader, and a warm and generous teacher and colleague. Speaking with him is still exhilarating. Friends though we have become, I remain (proudly) his student.
There are school friends from Karachi with whom friendship has survived a quarter of a century of moving and displacement: Feryan Ahmed, Ismail Mirza, Karim and Marianne, Yasir Husain, Sameeta Ahmed, and last, but never least, Sameer Rabbani, who remembers my birthday and who has always known how I’m feeling just by looking at me. In New York, I have relied on Carmen. Some friends have given moments of much-needed relief from the hothouse world of the academy. Shehnaz and Manisha have been great. Steven, who introduced me to the beauty of Harlem and Washington Heights. Naumann, who reminds me of home and has helped with the production of this book, who is sardonic and protective in equal, if sometimes carefully hidden, measure, and Ilya with whom I have learned to share Greece as well—to more days in Athens and Mytilene and, soon, Ikaria, buddy. Despina (humblingly) taught me the irrelevance of words—although we share hardly a fifth of a language between us, she has shown and wordlessly expressed tremendous care and insight. Walking to Café Neo before she retired and, now, down to the harbor in the evening when I get to the village, being met with those extraordinarily caring shrieks of joy to the complete bemusement of all the tourists around, has become one of the high points of every summer. And, of course, she’s one of the best cooks I’ve ever met. John Slavin and Julie Copeland, friends from Australia, felicitously met in Greece, shared an unforgettable three days in Umbria, hunting for Peruginos and providing much-needed relief and pleasure at a crucial moment in the writing of this book. Azra Apa’s (Azra Raza) place has become home; I have met new, beautiful friends there and taken comfort from her generosity and support and from her passionate knowledge of Urdu literature, as I have from Bibi’s (Amera Raza) astuteness, indefinable grace, and attentive gentleness.
Two members of my family had a crucial role in my intellectual formation. My Muslim nationalist and fundamentalist (the two are not synonymous, of course) father came to Pakistan on a bus at the age of fifteen, rejecting his Congress-supporting father’s views, following a dream of a Muslim homeland. His quest informs almost every page of this book. He bought me an encyclopedia when I was three and debated what I suppose I can only call moral theology with me throughout my adolescence. We fought passionately as I developed a different ideology and rejected his views on women. Yet his contradictions, quicksilver intelligence, and wit—which not nearly enough people get to see—have been more central to such ability as I have to think and argue and even banter than anyone else, which is why I think he chuckled with wry and respectful understanding when many, many years later he finally accepted the ineffectiveness of disowning someone who didn’t care to be owned.
My maternal grandfather, who read all night, let me read in the crook of his arm long after lights went out in the rest of the house. He snuck me money for books and took me to Hyderi where he bought me secondhand books from a thelā—on which frayed and stained copies of Alberto Moravia and Andre Gide jostled the tattered, technicolor glories of Urdu Digest—and jalebīs from the shop next to it, andarse kī golīyān from somewhere deep in the city, and spicy fried fish from a corner in Karimabad, thus giving me at the same time my passion for street food. He was a remarkable, reticent, generous, and conservative man who died in terrible circumstances, betrayed and abandoned by all who should have fought to protect him from the cruelty to which he was subjected by those closest to him. I like to think that, had he lived, he would have loved the fact that I had written this book, even as he told me yet again that I had made a terrible mistake by not joining the Pakistani Civil Service.
Dimitris Krallis, Sarita See, Sangeeta Kamat, Kamal Ahmed, and Biju Matthew have taught me the possibilities of reinvention in friendship. Sarita made a life-changing suggestion, sent pictures of food from different corners of the globe, Skyped for hours from Ann Arbor, L.A., Manila, Baguio, and Singapore, and listened carefully as I worked out my ideas on the Baroque. Dimitris was an unbelievably present friend through a health crisis. Over the years, looking over Molivos bay at moonlight, or competing with the awful music at the beach bar, talking about ideas, tunelessly singing atrocious songs, and squabbling on the winding roads of Lesvos, we have become more like siblings (who actually like each other) than friends. Sangeeta opened her home to me and talked endlessly about ideas and came for a couple of intense and timely walks. Biju provided food on demand, was present in unbelievable ways, heard every page, pushed, argued, never lost faith, put up with my arguments, and whether in Hyderabad, Shanghai, or New York always answered the phone. I cannot name that debt, so I’ll write about the joy of landing in New York and calling from the taxi, knowing that I have one more home and hare masāle kī machlī to be had on (frequent) demand. And Kamal, friend for a quarter of a century now, how do I write of his generosity and care? Perhaps best to focus on the giggle-making joy of his indescribably bad jokes and the absurdity of our conversations and play, on the wordless comfort of cooking together, and on those beautiful bus rides from Siena to Rome and San Gimigniano. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Knowing that I could rely on him no matter what made this book possible.
Ashnfara and Alejandra were exceptionally generous in making me welcome in their father’s life. Lucia and Javier rolled with me on the floor when I couldn’t handle yet another sentence with too many appositives. R. A. Judy came into my life late in the composition of this book, because of the composition of this book. It is richer because of our conversations and his careful readings and profound attention. Sharing a study has been wonderfully intellectually volatile; we have argued passionately and pushed each other in exhilarating ways. And there’s not much left to ask for when the man, who ran Fanon reading groups for the Black Panther party and studied philosophy at Al-Azhar, combines breathtaking erudition with an ability to eyeball the mixings for a pie crust and still make perfect peach pie, hot biscuits, and kisra from scratch and almost perfect seekh kebabs.