'Who wrote...?' is one of the most common General Knowledge questions. Search by title or author, and filter Pakistani, South Asian, Muslim-world and world books by genre.
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83 of 83 books
| Book | Author | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| A Brief History of Time 1988 · English | Stephen Hawking | Popular guide to cosmology, black holes and the Big Bang; a long-running bestseller. Science & economicsWorld |
| A Case of Exploding Mangoes 2008 · English | Mohammed Hanif | A satirical novel about the 1988 plane crash that killed General Zia-ul-Haq. NovelPakistan |
| A Passage to India 1924 · English | E. M. Forster | A classic novel about British–Indian relations under the Raj. NovelWorld |
| Aag Ka Darya (River of Fire) 1959 · Urdu | Qurratulain Hyder | An epic Urdu novel spanning 2,500 years of South Asian history; she later moved back to India from Pakistan. NovelSouth Asia |
| Animal Farm 1945 · English | George Orwell | Satire of Soviet communism: 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others'. NovelWorld |
| Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum (The Sealed Nectar) 1976 · Arabic | Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri | Biography of the Prophet (PBUH) that won first prize in the Muslim World League's 1976 seerah competition. Philosophy & religionSouth Asia |
| Asbab-e-Baghawat-e-Hind (The Causes of the Indian Revolt) 1859 · Urdu | Sir Syed Ahmad Khan | Argued that British policies and misunderstanding, not Muslim disloyalty, caused the 1857 War of Independence. Politics & historySouth Asia |
| Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) 1915 · Persian | Allama Muhammad Iqbal | Iqbal's first Persian poetry collection, setting out his philosophy of khudi (selfhood); translated into English by R. A. Nicholson in 1920. PoetryPakistan |
| Bal-e-Jibril (Gabriel's Wing) 1935 · Urdu | Allama Muhammad Iqbal | Often seen as Iqbal's finest Urdu collection; includes the poem on the Mosque of Córdoba. PoetryPakistan |
| Bang-e-Dra (The Call of the Marching Bell) 1924 · Urdu | Allama Muhammad Iqbal | Iqbal's first Urdu poetry collection; includes 'Tarana-e-Milli' and the poems Shikwa and Jawab-e-Shikwa. PoetryPakistan |
| Das Kapital 1867 (volume 1) · German | Karl Marx | Marx's critique of capitalism and theory of surplus value. Science & economicsWorld |
| Daughter of the East 1988 · English | Benazir Bhutto | Autobiography of the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority country; published in the US as Daughter of Destiny. Autobiography & memoirPakistan |
| Divine Comedy c. 1320 · Italian | Dante Alighieri | Epic poem of a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven; Iqbal's Javid Nama is often compared with it. PoetryWorld |
| Diwan-e-Ghalib 1841 · Urdu | Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib | Ghalib's collection of Urdu ghazals, the most famous in Urdu literature. PoetrySouth Asia |
| Don Quixote 1605 · Spanish | Miguel de Cervantes | Often called the first modern novel; a knight who 'tilts at windmills'. NovelWorld |
| Exit West 2017 · English | Mohsin Hamid | A refugee love story with magical doors between countries; shortlisted for the Booker Prize. NovelPakistan |
| Freedom at Midnight 1975 · English | Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre | Popular history of the end of British rule and Partition in 1947. Politics & historyWorld |
| Friends Not Masters 1967 · English | Muhammad Ayub Khan | Political autobiography of Pakistan's first military ruler; the title sums up the relationship he wanted with the USA. Autobiography & memoirPakistan |
| Gitanjali (Song Offerings) 1910 (English 1912) · Bengali | Rabindranath Tagore | The poetry collection for which Tagore won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first non-European laureate. PoetrySouth Asia |
| Gulistan (The Rose Garden) 1258 · Persian | Sheikh Saadi | Moral stories in prose and verse, a classic of Persian literature; Saadi also wrote the Bustan. PoetryMuslim world |
| Hamlet c. 1600 · English | William Shakespeare | Shakespeare's tragedy of the Prince of Denmark; contains 'To be, or not to be'. DramaWorld |
| Home Fire 2017 · English | Kamila Shamsie | A modern retelling of Sophocles' Antigone about a British-Pakistani family; won the Women's Prize for Fiction (2018). NovelPakistan |
| I Am Malala 2013 · English | Malala Yousafzai (with Christina Lamb) | Memoir of the youngest Nobel laureate, from Swat under the Taliban to the 2012 attack on her. Autobiography & memoirPakistan |
| Ice Candy Man (Cracking India) 1988 · English | Bapsi Sidhwa | Partition seen through the eyes of a young Parsi girl in Lahore; filmed as Earth (1998). NovelPakistan |
| If I Am Assassinated 1979 · English | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto | Written in his death cell in reply to the Zia government's White Paper against him; published in India. Politics & historyPakistan |
| In the Line of Fire 2006 · English | Pervez Musharraf | Memoir of General Musharraf, including the 1999 coup and the post-9/11 alliance with the USA. Autobiography & memoirPakistan |
| India Wins Freedom 1959 · English | Maulana Abul Kalam Azad | Azad's account of the freedom struggle and Partition; 30 pages were held back until 1988. Autobiography & memoirSouth Asia |
| Jinnah of Pakistan 1984 · English | Stanley Wolpert | A leading biography of Quaid-e-Azam by an American historian. Politics & historyWorld |
| Khutbat-e-Madras 1925 · Urdu | Syed Sulaiman Nadvi | Eight lectures on the life of the Prophet (PBUH), given in Madras. Philosophy & religionSouth Asia |
| Kim 1901 · English | Rudyard Kipling | Novel of British India that opens at the Zamzama gun outside the Lahore Museum. NovelWorld |
| Leviathan 1651 · English | Thomas Hobbes | Social contract theory: without government, life would be 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. Philosophy & religionWorld |
| Long Walk to Freedom 1994 · English | Nelson Mandela | Autobiography of South Africa's first Black president, much of it written secretly in prison on Robben Island. Autobiography & memoirWorld |
| Masnavi-e-Maanavi c. 1258–1273 · Persian | Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi | A six-book Sufi poem of spiritual stories, called 'the Quran in Persian'; Iqbal called Rumi his spiritual guide. PoetryMuslim world |
| Mein Kampf 1925 · German | Adolf Hitler | Hitler's political manifesto, written partly in prison after a failed coup in 1923. Autobiography & memoirWorld |
| Midnight's Children 1981 · English | Salman Rushdie | Won the Booker Prize (1981) and was later named the 'Booker of Bookers'; its hero is born at the moment of India's independence. NovelSouth Asia |
| Mirat-ul-Uroos (The Bride's Mirror) 1869 · Urdu | Deputy Nazir Ahmad | Often called the first Urdu novel; a moral tale about the education of women. NovelSouth Asia |
| Muqaddimah 1377 · Arabic | Ibn Khaldun | Introduction to his world history; a founding work of sociology, historiography and economics, known for the idea of 'asabiyyah' (group solidarity). Politics & historyMuslim world |
| Musaddas-e-Hali (Madd-o-Jazr-e-Islam) 1879 · Urdu | Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali | A long poem on the rise and decline of Muslims, written at Sir Syed's request; it inspired the Aligarh Movement. PoetrySouth Asia |
| Naqsh-e-Faryadi 1941 · Urdu | Faiz Ahmed Faiz | Faiz's first poetry collection; includes 'Mujh se pehli si mohabbat'. PoetryPakistan |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949 · English | George Orwell | Novel of a total surveillance state; gave us 'Big Brother', 'thoughtcrime' and 'doublethink'. NovelWorld |
| On the Origin of Species 1859 · English | Charles Darwin | Introduced the theory of evolution by natural selection. Science & economicsWorld |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude 1967 · Spanish | Gabriel García Márquez | Masterpiece of magical realism about the Buendía family in the town of Macondo. NovelWorld |
| Orientalism 1978 · English | Edward Said | Palestinian-American scholar's critique of how the West has portrayed the East; founded postcolonial studies. Politics & historyWorld |
| Pakistan or the Partition of India 1940 · English | B. R. Ambedkar | Study of the case for Pakistan by the main author of India's constitution, first published in 1940 as Thoughts on Pakistan and retitled in 1945. Politics & historySouth Asia |
| Pakistan: A Hard Country 2011 · English | Anatol Lieven | A British journalist's study of how Pakistan's society and institutions actually work. Politics & historyWorld |
| Paradise Lost 1667 · English | John Milton | Epic poem on the fall of Adam and Eve, written after Milton went blind. PoetryWorld |
| Peer-e-Kamil 2004 · Urdu | Umera Ahmed | One of the most widely read modern Urdu novels, about faith and the finality of prophethood. NovelPakistan |
| Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1687 · Latin | Isaac Newton | Set out Newton's three laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation. Science & economicsWorld |
| Politics 4th century BC · Greek | Aristotle | Classifies forms of government and calls man 'a political animal'; Aristotle is called the father of political science. Philosophy & religionWorld |
| Pride and Prejudice 1813 · English | Jane Austen | Classic novel of manners; opens 'It is a truth universally acknowledged...'. NovelWorld |
| Raja Gidh 1981 · Urdu | Bano Qudsia | Famous Urdu novel built around the idea of haram and halal and its effect on the human mind. NovelPakistan |
| Seerat-un-Nabi from 1918 · Urdu | Allama Shibli Nomani and Syed Sulaiman Nadvi | A multi-volume biography of the Prophet (PBUH), begun by Shibli and completed by his student Sulaiman Nadvi. Philosophy & religionSouth Asia |
| Shahab Nama 1987 · Urdu | Qudratullah Shahab | Memoir of a senior bureaucrat who served Governors-General and Presidents; a popular inside view of Pakistan's early decades. Autobiography & memoirPakistan |
| Shahnameh (Book of Kings) c. 1010 · Persian | Ferdowsi | Persia's national epic of about 50,000 couplets, telling the history of Iran's kings. PoetryMuslim world |
| Silent Spring 1962 · English | Rachel Carson | Exposed the harm of pesticides such as DDT and launched the modern environmental movement. Science & economicsWorld |
| Tafheem-ul-Quran 1942–1972 · Urdu | Syed Abul A'la Maududi | A six-volume Urdu translation and commentary of the Quran, written over 30 years by the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami. Philosophy & religionPakistan |
| The Art of War c. 5th century BC · Chinese | Sun Tzu | Ancient Chinese text on military strategy, still read by soldiers and business leaders. Politics & historyWorld |
| The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order 1996 · English | Samuel P. Huntington | Argued that future conflicts would be between cultures and religions rather than states; a reply to Fukuyama. Politics & historyWorld |
| The Communist Manifesto 1848 · German | Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels | Ends with 'Workers of the world, unite!'; the founding pamphlet of communism. Politics & historyWorld |
| The Diary of a Young Girl 1947 · Dutch | Anne Frank | Diary of a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam; she died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. Autobiography & memoirWorld |
| The Discovery of India 1946 · English | Jawaharlal Nehru | History of India written while Nehru was imprisoned in Ahmednagar Fort (1942–45). Politics & historySouth Asia |
| The Emergence of Pakistan 1967 · English | Chaudhry Muhammad Ali | An account of the creation of Pakistan by a senior civil servant who later became Prime Minister (1955–56). Politics & historyPakistan |
| The End of History and the Last Man 1992 · English | Francis Fukuyama | Argued that liberal democracy might be the final form of human government after the Cold War. Politics & historyWorld |
| The God of Small Things 1997 · English | Arundhati Roy | Won the Booker Prize (1997); set in Kerala. NovelSouth Asia |
| The Guide 1958 · English | R. K. Narayan | Set in the fictional town of Malgudi; won India's Sahitya Akademi Award. NovelSouth Asia |
| The Myth of Independence 1969 · English | Zulfikar Ali Bhutto | Bhutto's case for an independent Pakistani foreign policy free of great-power control. Politics & historyPakistan |
| The Old Man and the Sea 1952 · English | Ernest Hemingway | Short novel about a Cuban fisherman; won the Pulitzer Prize and was cited when Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel. NovelWorld |
| The Prince 1532 (written 1513) · Italian | Niccolò Machiavelli | A realistic guide for rulers on gaining and keeping power; gave us the word 'Machiavellian'. Politics & historyWorld |
| The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam 1930 · English | Allama Muhammad Iqbal | Iqbal's lectures (given in Madras, Hyderabad and Aligarh) on rethinking Islamic thought in modern terms; his main prose work. Philosophy & religionPakistan |
| The Reluctant Fundamentalist 2007 · English | Mohsin Hamid | A Pakistani man in post-9/11 America tells his story in a Lahore café; shortlisted for the Booker Prize. NovelPakistan |
| The Republic c. 375 BC · Greek | Plato | Plato's ideal state ruled by philosopher-kings; a founding text of Western political philosophy. Philosophy & religionWorld |
| The Social Contract 1762 · French | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Opens with 'Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains'; introduced the 'general will'. Philosophy & religionWorld |
| The Sole Spokesman 1985 · English | Ayesha Jalal | Influential study of Jinnah, the Muslim League and the demand for Pakistan. Politics & historyPakistan |
| The Story of My Experiments with Truth 1927 · Gujarati | Mohandas K. Gandhi | Gandhi's autobiography up to the 1920s, first published in weekly parts. Autobiography & memoirSouth Asia |
| The Wealth of Nations 1776 · English | Adam Smith | Founding work of modern economics; introduced the 'invisible hand' and the division of labour. Science & economicsWorld |
| Things Fall Apart 1958 · English | Chinua Achebe | Nigerian classic about the effects of colonialism on Igbo society; the most widely read African novel. NovelWorld |
| Twilight in Delhi 1940 · English | Ahmed Ali | A landmark English novel about the decline of Muslim culture in Delhi; Ahmed Ali later moved to Pakistan. NovelPakistan |
| Two Treatises of Government 1689 · English | John Locke | Argued for natural rights to life, liberty and property; influenced the US Declaration of Independence. Philosophy & religionWorld |
| Udaas Naslain (The Weary Generations) 1963 · Urdu | Abdullah Hussain | Novel of the independence struggle and Partition; won the Adamjee Literary Award. NovelPakistan |
| Ulysses 1922 · English | James Joyce | Modernist novel set in Dublin on a single day, 16 June 1904 ('Bloomsday'). NovelWorld |
| Umrao Jaan Ada 1899 · Urdu | Mirza Hadi Ruswa | Classic Urdu novel about a courtesan in 19th-century Lucknow. NovelSouth Asia |
| Uncle Tom's Cabin 1852 · English | Harriet Beecher Stowe | Anti-slavery novel that hugely influenced American opinion before the Civil War. NovelWorld |
| War and Peace 1869 · Russian | Leo Tolstoy | Epic of Russian society during Napoleon's invasion of 1812. NovelWorld |