Women in Concert

Translated from the original anthology in Bengali. Throwing light on the work and lives of unknown or forgotten Muslim women writers of pre-Independence Bengal, when the state was not yet partitioned between India and East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh), in 1947, this anthology is like a rediscovery of their lives. First published in Bengali as Zenana Mehfil: Bangali Musalman Lekhikader Nirbachita Rachana, 1904-38, it compiles, for the first time, eleven Bengali Muslim women's writings: essays, short stories, poetry, a novel and some correspondence, each introduced and discussed separately. This anthology also gives a glimpse of their lives that were not always confined within the household. The writers include Akhtar Mahal, Sayyada Khatun and M. Fatema Khanum, and other much more familiar names like Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and Shamsundar Mahmud. Among the immensely valuable interviews are those of Mohammed Nasiruddin, who devoted his life to the cause of Bengali Muslim women's emancipation, his daughter Nurjehan Begum, the poet Sufia Kamal, the writer Hameeda Khanam and Syed Mustafa Siraj, the celebrated Bengali novelist who witnessed the social changes that were to alter the Bengali Muslim world.