Irtaqai Tanqeed (Evolutionary Criticism)
Over the past century, literary criticism has evolved through countless lenses – from structuralism and post-structuralism to psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial readings. Yet, at the heart of these diverse schools lies one shared conviction: that literature is not created in isolation, but shaped by its time, context, and the human condition itself.
The book Irtaqai Tanqeed (Evolutionary Criticism), authored by Zafar Syed, introduces a fresh and compelling perspective – literary Darwinism – which views literature as an extension of human evolution. Just as the heart and kidneys are products of natural selection, so too are the brain and imagination. If the mind evolved to ensure survival, then art, storytelling, and literature are its natural expressions – evolved tools that help humanity understand itself, build empathy and sustain community life.
This groundbreaking work bridges science and the humanities, asking profound questions: Why does humanity create art that seems detached from survival? How do universal emotions like love, jealousy, fear, and hope reflect evolutionary instincts? And what can ancient epics or modern fiction reveal about the biological roots of storytelling?
Combining theory with practice, the authors apply evolutionary principles to world classics like Homer’s Iliad and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, as well as to selected Urdu short stories, demonstrating how deeply evolution shapes the way we write, read, and relate to narratives.
Irtaqai Tanqeed is both an invitation and a guide – offering readers new intellectual tools to reimagine literature not just as art, but as the written form of life itself.
About the Speaker:
Zafar Syed is a fiction writer, critic, historian, science educator, and translator who works in both English and Urdu. He is the author of ten books, including two novels, a volume of criticism, a popular science title, a research monograph, and five translations.
Beyond his books, he has published hundreds of articles in international publications on history, literature, culture, science, etc., and has lectured widely across Pakistan. His intellectual interests span evolution, free will, consciousness, artificial intelligence, history, linguistics and neurology.
Zafar is currently the Editor of Independent Urdu, the Urdu-language edition of The Independent (UK). He has previously worked with the BBC, Voice of America, and the U.S. State Department.
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The Black Hole
Plot 5H, Street 100, G-11/3, Islamabad.
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