Chandni Begum

A Novel

Qurratulain Hyder

Paperback

9789385606113

Women Unlimited, 2017

340 pages

INR 450.00

In stock

SKU

pro_1753

type

Maximum 50 characters

type

Maximum 50 characters

type

Maximum 50 characters

Qty

The book is author's last, most enigmatic and daring of her novels. It spans the period from the partition of the time of the Mandir-Masjid dispute in Ayodhya in the early Nineties, consistently connecting the present to the past.

Centred around two prominent Lucknow families, the narrative closes in on the lives and struggles of Qambar, a romantic revolutionary, and the three women drawn to him-Bela, the daughter of a mirasi-bhand couple, desperate to break away from her tainted 'legacy'; Safia, the polio-stricken daughter of the Raja of Teen Katori, an independent 'educationist' dealing with the crushing rejection of her childhood betrothed and the demons that haunt her in its wake; and the eponymous heroine, Chandni Begum, destitute survivor of a once powerful landed family, looking for a way to get by respectably.

Qurratulain Hyder

Qurratulain Hyder is a leading writer in Urdu fiction in India. A prose stylist of rare accomplishment, she wrote in both Urdu and English, and her books have been translated into all Indian languages. She was awarded the Bharatiya Jnanpith, India's highest literary award, in 1989. The recipient of a number of other literary awards, she is a Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi, travelled widely and worked as a journalist and broadcaster. Her novel River of Fire (Women Unlimited, 2003), translated by the author from the original Urdu Aag ka Dariya, has achieved epic status in fiction about the subcontinent. My Temples, Too, also translated by Hyder from the original Mere Bhi Sanamkhane, has been published by Women Unlimited in 2004; and Fireflies in the Mist, was translated from the original Akhir-e-Shab ke Humsafar, by Aamer Hussain was published by Women Unlimited in 2008. Her latest title, published by Women Unlimited in 2009, is a collection of short stories, Street Singers of Lucknow and Other Stories, translated by Hyder herself.