ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE FEMINIST PRESS
Muneeza Shamsie
ISBN: 9781558615809
The only English-language anthology by Pakistani women published in the United States, And the World Changed goes beyond the sensational headlines to reveal the stories of Pakistani women. Immigrants and refugees, travelers and explorers, seasoned authors and fresh voices, the twenty-five writers in this volume are as dynamic and diverse as their stories.
Famed novelist Bapsi Sidhwa portrays a Pakistani community in Houston, Texas, still struggling to heal from the horrors of Partition. In Uzma Aslam Khan’s tale, a man working in a Karachi auto body shop falls in love with the magical woman painted on a bus cabin. Bushra Rehman introduces us to a Pakistani girl living in Corona, Queens, who becomes painfully aware of the tensions between established Italian immigrants and their new Pakistani neighbors. Author of what the New York Review of Books has hailed as impressive new fiction, Kamila Shamsie comments on the harsh lives of the poor in Pakistan in a story about a servant girl falsely accused of stealing jewelry from her mistress—who also happens to be her best childhood friend. Humera Afridi powerfully describes the days following 9/11 when a young woman navigates Manhattan’s rubble-filled streets to search for a mosque.
Filled with nostalgic memories of Pakistan, critical commentary about the world’s current political climate, and inspirational hope for the future, the stories in And the World Changed weave an intricate, enlightening view of Pakistan, its relation to the West, and the women who travel between the two regions.
Featuring: Talat Abbasi, Humera Afridi, Aamina Ahmad, Rukhsana Ahmad, Feryal Ali Gauhar, Sara Suleri Goodyear, Shahrukh Husain, Sabyn Javeri Jillani, Sonia Kamal, Fawzia Afzal Khan, Sorayya Khan, Uzma Aslam Khan, Maniza Naqvi, Tahira Naqvi, Nayyara Rahman, Hima Raza, Bushra Rehman, Fahmida Riaz, Roshni Rustomji, Sehba Sarwar, Bina Shah, Qaisra Shahraz, Kamila Shamsie, Muneeza Shamsie, and Bapsi Sidwa.
“I could not put this book down! And the World Changed is a groundbreaking collection that has the potential to propel contemporary writing by Pakistani women to the center of postcolonial literary canons. . . . A book to savor, to think upon and share with everyone.”
—Chandra Talpade Mohanty, author of Feminism Without Borders, Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity
“And the World Changed is a pathbreaking anthology, a feast of women’s writing which challenges stereotypes of Pakistani women since Partition. It is essential reading for anyone interested in this emerging literature.”
—Janet Wilson, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, The University of Northampton; editor, Journal of Postcolonial Writing
“Muneeza Shmasie’s gem-like collection is once personal, autobiographical, and national. The stories suggest that the tiniest personal moments connect, directly or obliquely, to the traumas of national and political identity formation.”
—Zohreh Sullivan, Professor of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
eISBN: 9781558617353 | ISBN: 9780935312836
Sultana’s Dream, first published in 1905 in a Madras English newspaper, is a witty feminist utopia—a tale of reverse purdah that posits a world in which men are confined indoors and women have taken over the public sphere, ending a war nonviolently and restoring health and beauty to the world. “The Secluded Ones” is a selection of short sketches, first published in Bengali newspapers, illuminating the cruel and comic realities of life in purdah.
Taslima Nasrin
eISBN: 9781558616899 | ISBN: 9781558616592
Revenge is a delicious novel about getting even, from one of the most controversial and internationally acclaimed writers of her generation.
In modern Bangladesh, Jhumur marries for love and imagines life with her husband, Haroon, will continue much as it did when they were dating. But once she crosses the threshold of Haroon’s family home, Jhumur finds she is expected to be the traditional Muslim wife: head covered, eyes averted, and unable to leave the house without an escort. When she becomes pregnant, Jhumur is shocked to discover that Haroon doesn’t believe the baby is his. Overwhelmed by his mistrust, Jhumur plots her revenge in the arms of a handsome neighbor. Readers will be stunned by this tale of love, lust, and blood ties.
“Taslima Nasrin has spoken out about the oppression of women under Islam, and what she’s said needed saying.”
—Salman Rushdie
eISBN: 9781558616936 | ISBN: 9781558616080
Marriages, affairs, suicides, duplicitous relations, second chances, murder, madness, and true love—Rajmahal is a beautifully crafted tale of families brought together in an unusual Bengali house over a century of turbulent changes. Within the walls of this stately home, a melting pot of tenants, alive and dead, new generations struggle to come to grips with the social, economic, and intellectual forces working in India as it moves from the British Raj to independence. Their intertwined fortunes and personal battles become a mirror of the struggle for possession of the country’s future.
“Kamalini Sengupta’s Rajmahal is indeed her Howard’s End! But the encompassing achievement of the novel is its penetration of a new stage in our human history: Sengupta’s is among the first and unquestionably to me the most revealing description of the life of the post-colonialist and postcolonized living on, somehow together. The colonizers who have lost the sense of what home they came from, and the colonized finding they have become inexorably something like the people from whom they struggled so long to gain their freedom.”
—Nadine Gordimer
“[Rajmahal] is witty, vivid, evocative and informed. . . . [T]he writing is sharp and compelling. Finally, it is the quality of the author’s intelligence—of mind and heart—that determines the value of a novel. . . .Sengupta’s book is. . . distinct from the recent body of competent Indian fiction in English. . . . Just read it. There is something in it for everybody. And many will love it all.”
—The Book Review (India)
Esther David
eISBN: 9781558616455 | ISBN: 9781558615960
Over two thousand years ago, remnants of one of the lost tribes of Israel appeared on the shores of India. They became known in India as the Bene Israel. Nothing has been the same since.
After religious riots break out in modern Ahmedabad, a handful of the tribe’s descendants band together to live in a communal housing complex: the Shalom India Housing Society. Nestled amidst their Hindu and Muslim neighbors, the residents of these charming apartments find ways to laugh (the laughing club meets every morning on the lawn) and love, whether it is a crush next door or an Internet date with a distant Israeli.
Writing with wit and an artist’s eye for detail, Esther David vividly portrays a resilient group who share a fondness for the liquor-loving Prophet Elijah and costume parties. These true-to-life stories depict the joys and conflicts of a people continually choosing between the Indian traditions of their homeland and their Jewish heritage.
“Hilarious and heartwarming . . .”
—Asian Age
“Though humorously tailored, Esther David has portrayed the fears and issues faced by the members of this small community to keep their identity, culture, and beliefs sacrosanct in India, a land of many gods. . . . Though the characters in this book are Jews settled in India, the insecurities the book vocalizes are the feelings and frustrations of the members of a minority community everywhere in this world.”
—Feminist Review
“[T]he nuanced portrayal of this diminishing community as a whole is quietly affecting.”
—Booklist