Lifting the Veil: Introduction by the winner of the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction Kamila Shamsie

Description

Sharp, witty and provocative stories by India's most famous feminist author, with an introduction by Kamila Shamsie Lifting the Veil is a bold and irreverent collection of writing from India's most controversial feminist writer. These stories celebrate life in all its complexities- from a woman who refuses marriage to a man she loves to preserve her freedom, to a Hindu and a Muslim teenager pulled apart by societal pressures, to eye-opening personal accounts of the charges of obscenity the author faced in court for pieces in this book. Wickedly funny and unflinchingly honest, Lifting the Veil explores the power of female sexuality while slyly mocking the subtle tyrannies of middle-class life. In 1940s India, an unlikely setting for female rebellion, Ismat Chughtai was a rare and radical storyteller born years ahead of her time.

Ismat Chughtai was Urdu's most courageous and controversial woman writer of the twentieth century. She was the first Indian Muslim woman to earn both a bachelor of arts and a bachelor's in education degree. She began writing in secret due to violent opposition from her family, and many of her works were banned for their fiercely feminist content. Her most celebrated short story, The Quilt, which is included in this publication, was brought to court on charges of obscenity for its suggestion of homosexuality. Ismat Chughtai refused the court's request to apologize for the story, and eventually won the case. She died in 1991.

Enlightened, bold, iconoclastic, progressive and feminist... Chughtai's style makes reading a delight * Dawn * One of the foremost Urdu writers of the 20th century, Ismat Chughtai is known for her iconoclastic, feminist writings which explored the inner workings of women's lives * Huffington Post * Her marvellous skill with language and storytelling has resulted in the creation of some of the most powerful women characters in world literature * The Hindu * Gloriously provocative... female sexuality within a patriarchal world is Chughtai's central concern -- Kamila Shamsie, from the introduction Chughtai's prose is supple, energetic, argumentative, funny, caustic, and colloquial. But what really distinguishes her from her peers is a bluntness that is often brutal, and a sarcasm that is always biting. This is high-voltage writing, it can be as vituperative as it is incisive, as polemical as it is profound. * India Today * Ismat Chughtai's work had a seminal impact on me... [her] rebellious life I carry about with me like a talisman -- Kishwar Desai, author of 'Origins of Love' A writer who was constantly challenging accepted notions of morality and urging her readers to examine a woman's place in society * Indian Express *