No Woman’s Land: Women from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh

Never before has a single volume featured non-fiction writing by women from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh on the partition of India. Here, for the first time, are Ismat Chughtai, Sara Suleri, Anis Kidwai, Phulrenu Guha, Meghna Guhathakurta, Shehla Shibli, Manikuntala Sen, Kamlaben Patel and many others, speaking and writing about communalism and literature; what they learnt from refugees; what partition means to them 50 years later; and how they define themselves-Hindus? Muslims? Indians? Pakistanis? Bengalis? All of these or none? Either or neither? Not-Indian – not-Pakistani? Bangladeshi not Pakistani? Above all, their accounts raise that most troubling question: do women have a country?. An unusual mix of memoirs, interviews, reminiscences and reflective essays, this anthology is the first attempt to present women’s perspective on the partition of India, based on the experience of three countries.