The Quilt and Other Stories - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1878818341 ISBN 13: 9781878818348

Publisher: Sheep Meadow Press, 1994

Synopsis

In 1944 Ismat Chughtai successfully defended herself before the Imperial Crown Court against a charge of obscenity for her short story "Lihaaf" - "The Quilt." The narrator of this story, a precocious nine-year old child, is sent to visit an aunt. This aunt, ignored by a husband whose only interest seems to lie in entertaining slim-waisted young boys, suffers from a relentless bodily itch, an itch, her niece discovers, no doctor can cure and only her maidservant can relieve.
Frank and often wickedly comic, Chughtai's stories were the imaginative core of her life's work, drawn from memories of the sprawling Muslim household of her childhood. With her mastery of the spoken language, economy of form, and her fine eye for the details of the intricate and hidden world of women's experience, Chughtai captured the evolving conflicts of Muslim India. Her exploration of the myriad and subtle tyrannies of middle-class gentility, and, equally, of those unexpected moments of sexual liberation and spirit, is unrivalled in contemporary Urdu literature.

About this title

From the Publisher:

6 x 9 trim. LC 94-19776

About the Author:

A bold daughter of Indian Independence, Ismat Chughtai was a master storyteller and Urdu's most outspoken woman writer. Born in 1915, Chughtai came from a family of intellectuals and writers and was briefly associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement in Lucknow. An intense individualist and iconoclast, her output was prolific and her work widely acclaimed in both India and Pakistan. She died in 1991.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sheep Meadow Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1878818341
• ISBN 13: 9781878818348
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176