How important is a ‘light touch’ approach in raising awareness to the unsuspecting masses? And what drives authors to weave big issues of the day throughout their comic novels?

In Moni Mohsin’s Lahore, our heroine is a rich social butterfly who spends her days shopping for diamonds, fluttering between GTs (get-togethers) and swinging her new ‘Prada-wallah’ shoes under the noses of her equally shallow friends.

Meanwhile, over in Zama’s beautiful, coastal South India, Mr Ali is bored in retirement and opens up his own ‘marriage bureau’, helping parents to find partners for their children. But in his own household things aren’t running too smoothly. His son, ignoring Mr Ali’s wishes to lead a quiet life, has become a social activist fighting on behalf of poor farmers against a huge multinational factory.

The entertaining commentary of Mohsin and Zama’s writing almost veils the harsh criticisms of Pakistan’s society: In Mohsin’s tale there is the persistent threat of ‘bomb-shombs, fundos and fatwas’, and Zama exposes the glaring gaps in material wealth, the treatment of widows and divorcees in Indian society, and the plight of farmers against dominant corporations.

Join Moni Mohsin and Farahad Zama as they discuss their books, and the art of writing life seriously.