{"product_id":"the-womens-courtyard-paperback","title":"The Women's Courtyard - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eKhadija Mastur\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eDaisy Rockwell\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator), \u003cb\u003eKamila Shamsie\u003c\/b\u003e (Foreword by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA feminist classic of Partition literature in a newly revised translation by Booker Prize-winning translator Daisy Rockwell. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA Penguin Classic \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSet in the turbulent decade of the 1940s, \u003ci\u003eThe Women's Courtyard\u003c\/i\u003e provides an inverted perspective on the Partition. Mastur's novel is conspicuously empty of the political pondering and large national questions that played out, typically, in the arenas of men. Instead, it gives expression to the preoccupations of the women in the courtyard, fighting different battles with loud voices. The novel follows a Muslim girl, Aliya, and her family, about and around the climax of the Independence struggle. While the national struggle rages on the street, Aliya and the other women in the courtyard are tethered hopelessly to their own problems of life and death. \u003ci\u003eThe Women's Courtyard \u003c\/i\u003eis an experience in suffocation. Within the strict religious and social framework of a rigid Muslim family, there is a purdah between Aliya and the rest of the world. While the men in Aliya's family wage politics, get beaten up, and go to jail in the unseen outside, their families back home are forced to wait in deteriorating conditions, trying desperately to hold up the social structure that confines them.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKhadija Mastur\u003c\/b\u003e was an award-winning Pakistani short story writer and novelist who was highly regarded in Urdu literature. Her novel \u003ci\u003eAangan\u003c\/i\u003e (\u003ci\u003eThe Women's Courtyard\u003c\/i\u003e) is widely considered a literary masterpiece in Urdu literature and has also been made into a television drama. Mastur was born in 1927 in Bareilly, India. She migrated to Lahore with her family after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 and settled there. Mastur wrote with conviction on patriarchy, classism, chauvinism, and misogyny. She saw them as \"systemic poisons that destroy and kill women intellectually, emotionally and physically.\" \u003cb\u003eDaisy Rockwell\u003c\/b\u003e (translator) is an artist, writer, and Hindi-Urdu translator. She has translated numerous classic literary works from Hindi and Urdu into English, including Bhisham Sahni's \u003ci\u003eTamas\u003c\/i\u003e and Khadija Mastur's \u003ci\u003eThe Women's Courtyard\u003c\/i\u003e. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree's \u003ci\u003eTomb of Sand\u003c\/i\u003e was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2020, she was the winner of the MLA's Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Translation of a Literary Work for Krishna Sobti's \u003ci\u003eA Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2023 she was awarded the Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award. \u003cb\u003eKamila Shamsie\u003c\/b\u003e (foreword) is the author of eight novels, which have been translated into over thirty languages. Her novels include \u003ci\u003eHome Fire \u003c\/i\u003e(2018), which won the Women's Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, \u003ci\u003eBurnt Shadows\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Premio Boccaccio in Italy, and \u003ci\u003eA God in Every Stone\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award. Four of her novels have also won awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A vice president and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she was one of \u003ci\u003eGranta\u003c\/i\u003e's \"Best of Young British Novelists\" in 2013. She grew up in Karachi, has an MFA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and now lives in London.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 320\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.7 x 7.6 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e July 15, 2025\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53755412218189,"sku":"9780143138068","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0927\/3304\/7117\/files\/7Z5NyGtXNl9780143138068.webp?v=1776718873","url":"https:\/\/belfastbooks.us\/products\/the-womens-courtyard-paperback","provider":"belfastbooks.us","version":"1.0","type":"link"}