In Quest of Jinnah

Book excerpt: The greatest travail to be undertaken by writers is that of the official biographer. In 1953, Beverly Nichols suggested Hector Bolitho, the New Zealand born biographer of Prince Albert, as the person best suited to write the biography of Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-i-Azam and first Governor-General. Hector Bolitho's Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan (1954) became his most celebrated and influential book. Frustrated however, at what he was not allowed to write or include, Bolitho preserved for scholars the first draft of his biography, his diary and notes, his correspondence with Government of Pakistan functionaries and highly placed individuals in Britain, India and Pakistan who had known Jinnah personally, and the English and American reviews of the book's published version. All of this material is present in this volume. In Quest of Jinnah which gives not only a stereovision of the original published version, but offers fresh and authentic insights into the personality and politics of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. It is a very rare version. To compile and edit such a vast volume of valuable material, an extraordinary scholar of Jinnah and Academy, doyen of Jinnah scholars in Pakistan and author of Jinnah Studies in Interpretation (1981), not only retrieved the material present in this volume but very carefully and meticulously edited it, to create a user-friendly volume for both the scholar and the general reader.