A Promised Land
In the wake of the Partition, a new country is born. As millions of refugees pour into Pakistan, swept up in a welter of chaos and deprivation, Sajidah and her father find their way to the Walton refugee camp, uncertain of their future in what is to become their new home.
Sajidah longs to be reunited with her beloved Salahuddin, but her journey out of the camp takes an altogether unforeseen route. Drawn into the lives of another family-refugees like herself-she is wary of its men, particularly Nazim, the eldest son whose gaze lingers over her. But it is the women of the household whose lives and choices will transform her the most: the passionately beseeching Saleema, her domineering mother Khala Bi, the kind but forlorn Amma Bi, and the feisty young housemaid Taji.
With subtlety and insight, Khadija Mastur conjures a d ynamic portrait of spirited women whose lives are wrought by tragedy and trial even as they cling defiantly to the promise of a better future.
Review
Daisy Rockwell's translations are rendered with a subtle brilliance that transports our master writers' original framework of sensibilities with great delicacy into a new language. We are fortunate to have, in Rockwell, a meticulous, virtuoso translator working on our literature. (MUSHARRAF ALI FAROOQI)
[A] literary heavyweight (DAWN)
Mastur is an expert at indicating her characters' thoughts and feelings in a brief phrase, a description of a detail, often just in a gesture. (GILLIAN WRIGHT OPEN)
Sajidah longs to be reunited with her beloved Salahuddin, but her journey out of the camp takes an altogether unforeseen route. Drawn into the lives of another family-refugees like herself-she is wary of its men, particularly Nazim, the eldest son whose gaze lingers over her. But it is the women of the household whose lives and choices will transform her the most: the passionately beseeching Saleema, her domineering mother Khala Bi, the kind but forlorn Amma Bi, and the feisty young housemaid Taji.
With subtlety and insight, Khadija Mastur conjures a d ynamic portrait of spirited women whose lives are wrought by tragedy and trial even as they cling defiantly to the promise of a better future.
Review
Daisy Rockwell's translations are rendered with a subtle brilliance that transports our master writers' original framework of sensibilities with great delicacy into a new language. We are fortunate to have, in Rockwell, a meticulous, virtuoso translator working on our literature. (MUSHARRAF ALI FAROOQI)
[A] literary heavyweight (DAWN)
Mastur is an expert at indicating her characters' thoughts and feelings in a brief phrase, a description of a detail, often just in a gesture. (GILLIAN WRIGHT OPEN)
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