Having a podcast with Moni Mohsin, face to face , was the much needed dose of laughter, humor, intellect, wisdom and experience. Honored and humbled to have her on 'dhaani' - A platform that wants to promote well-being, on the emotional, psychological, physiological, spiritual level - and laughter , humor and wit is an intrinsic feature of the human life. We spoke about privacy, laying safe boundaries, the need for solitude, social media and intrusiveness, and last but not the least Moni was generous to share her "Social Butterfly" snippets with us.
Moni Mohsin was born in 1963 in Lahore, Pakistan. Since her father was from the landed gentry of Punjab and her mother from a business family in Lahore, she grew up between Lahore (where she attended a strict convent school run by Irish nuns) and Okara, where she ran wild with peasant children. Like her siblings before her, she left Pakistan at the age of sixteen to attend boarding school in England. Having completed her A’levels, she proceeded to Cambridge to read for a tripos in Archaeology and Anthroplogy.
In 1986 she returned to a Pakistan gripped tight in the iron fist of General Zia-ul-Haq. She spent the next two years working for an environmental agency, where she produced Pakistan’s first environmental news magazine, Natura. And then in 1988, when General Zia was assassinated and space for political discourse opened up once again, she moved to a new publishing venture, The Friday Times, Pakistan’s first independent weekly. She spent seven years there, rising eventually to the position of Features Editor.
She married in 1995 and moved back to England with her husband. Since then she has freelanced for a number of Pakistani magazines including The Friday Times, Libas and Zameen. She has also contributed short fiction to the creative writing issue of Wasafiri 2000 edited by Aamer Huussein and Bernadine Evaristo and an anthology on Lahore edited by Bapsi Sidhwa and published by Penguin India. She has also authored a travel book on Lahore published by the Guide Book Company and is currently in talks for the publication of her journalistic writings with Vanguard Books Pakistan and Penguin India. The Ceremony of Innocence is her first novel. She has two children and divides her time between Lahore and London.
Moni Mohsin is a Pakistani born novelist and freelance journalist based in London. She has authored two novels, the award winning The End of Innocence (Penguin UK) and Duty Free (Vintage) which was adapted for Radio Four’s Book at Bedtime. Her long running satirical column in the weekly newspaper, The Friday Times in Lahore, has been published by Vintage as The Diary of a Social Butterfly and its best selling follow up, The Return of the Butterfly, by Random House India.
Her journalistic work has appeared in The Guardian, 1843, Prospect, The Literary Review, Vogue, The Times of India and Nikkei Asian Review. Last year her article ‘Austenistan’ (published in 1843) was shortlisted for a Foreign Press Association award. She does book reviews, cultural features, political pieces, satirical columns and celebrity interviews and writes on topics ranging from domestic workers in the Middle East to Bollywood.
Moni Mohsin Social Media Handles
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/MoniMohsinpage/
Instagram : @monimohsinofficial
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