The Begum And The Dastan

Lined with grandeur, tragedy and fantasy, Tarana Husain Khan's odyssey maps the social, political and religious contours of 1897 Sherpur with the fascinating and strong-willed Feroza Begum at the centre of the storm. On an evening not too many evenings ago, the blue-eyed Feroza, flouting her family's orders, attended Nawab Shams Ali Khan's sawani celebrations at the Benazir Palace. Tragedy coloured the night when she found herself kidnapped and withheld in the Nawab's harem - bustling, tantalizing and rife with sinister power play. As tyranny and repression tightened their hold inside the royal walls, at the Bazaar Chowk, dastangoi Kallan Mirza enchanted his listeners with the legend of sorcerer Tareek Jaan and his chimeric city, the Tilism-e-Azam, where women were confined in underground basements. Misfortune and subjugation link eras when Ameera, Feroza's great-granddaughter, is restricted to her house and finds solace in her Dadi's retelling of Feroza's tragedy. When Ameera's circumstances begin mirroring the strife and indignities pervasive in 1897 Sherpur, she must reflect if society has shifted enough for women and their choices. Written with careful flamboyance and striking evocativeness, The Begum and the Dastan is a world imbued with love, splendour and heartbreak, only saved by the women who refuse to play by the rule book.

Winner of the Global Humanities Translation Prize The Tale of the Missing Man (Dastan-e Lapata) is a milestone in Indo-Muslim literature. A refreshingly playful novel, it explores modern Muslim life in the wake of the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. Zamir Ahmad Khan suffers from a mix of alienation, guilt, and postmodern anxiety that defies diagnosis. His wife abandons him to his reflections about his childhood, writing, ill-fated affairs, and his hometown, Bhopal, as he attempts to unravel the lies that brought him to his current state (while weaving new ones). A novel of a heroic quest gone awry, The Tale of the Missing Man artfully twists the conventions of the Urdu romance, or dastan, tradition, where heroes chase brave exploits that are invariably rewarded by love. The hero of Ahtesham’s tale, living in the fast-changing city of Bhopal during the 1970s and ’80s, suffers an identity crisis of epic proportions: he is lost, missing, and unknown both to himself and to others. The result is a twofold quest in which the fate of protagonist and writer become inextricably and ironically linked. The lost hero sets out in search of himself, while the author goes in search of the lost hero, his fictionalized alter ego. New York magazine cited the book as one of “the world's best untranslated novels.” In addition to raising important questions about Muslim identity, Ahtesham offers a very funny and thoroughly self-reflective commentary on the modern author’s difficulties in writing autobiography. The Global Humanities Translation Prize is awarded annually to a previously unpublished translation that strikes the delicate balance between scholarly rigor, aesthetic grace, and general readability, as judged by a rotating committee of Northwestern faculty, distinguished international scholars, writers, and public intellectuals. The Prize is organized by the Global Humanities Initiative, which is jointly supported by Northwestern University’s Buffett Institute for Global Studies and Kaplan Institute for the Humanities.

WINNER of the 2022 INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WORKING WOMEN AWARD for BEST FICTION OF THE YEAR! LONGLISTED for 2022 DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD! She rose from commoner to become the last reigning queen of India’s Sikh Empire. In this dazzling novel, based on true-life events, bestselling author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni presents the unforgettable story of Jindan, who transformed herself from daughter of the royal kennel keeper to powerful monarch. Sharp-eyed, stubborn, and passionate, Jindan was known for her beauty. When she caught the eye of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, she was elevated to royalty, becoming his youngest and last queen—and his favorite. And when her son, barely six years old, unexpectedly inherited the throne, Jindan assumed the regency. She transformed herself from pampered wife to warrior ruler, determined to protect her people and her son’s birthright from the encroaching British Empire. Defying tradition, she stepped out of the zenana, cast aside the veil, and conducted state business in public, inspiring her subjects in two wars. Her power and influence were so formidable that the British, fearing an uprising, robbed the rebel queen of everything she had, but nothing crushed her indomitable will. An exquisite love story of a king and a commoner, a cautionary tale about loyalty and betrayal, a powerful parable of the indestructible bond between mother and child, and an inspiration for our times, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel brings alive one of the most fearless women of the nineteenth century, one whose story cries out to be told.

The Rana name has been synonymous with the history and culture of Nepal for centuries. The beautiful palaces of Nepal were known not only for their glamour and architecture but also for their royal feasts. The recipes of the food served were exclusively with the cooks of the palaces and a lucky few who inherited them from earlier generations. In this exquisite book, for the first time ever, the doors to the palace kitchens are opened and we get a glimpse into the mouthwatering cuisine of the royals. Nepali food is famous for its fresh and light flavours in the staple rice, daals, meat and vegetables. The food of the Ranas, however, is vastly influenced by Indian flavours. While Indian food is renowned for its rich, thick gravies, Nepali cuisine tends to prefer lighter jhols and dry bhutans and kawafs. Though raw materials such as meat and vegetables can easily be found in the Indian kitchen, the style of preparation and spices such as jimbu and timur are unique in their Nepali flavour. With help and inputs from numerous family members, Rohini Rana has collected and documented the recipes precious to each Rana prime minister's family. Showcasing magnificent food from the palaces, this luxurious and beautifully illustrated cookbook attempts to preserve these recipes for future generations, and posterity.

Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell is an extraordinary novel, a biography of Manto and Ghalib and a history of Indian culture rolled into one. Exhumed from dust, Manto’s unpublished novel surfaces in Lucknow. Is it real or is it a fake? In this dastan, Manto and Ghalib converse, entwining their lives in shared dreams. The result is an intellectual journey that takes us into the people and events that shape us as a culture. As one writer describes it, ‘I discovered Rabisankar Bal like a torch in the darkness of the history of this subcontinent. This is the real story of two centuries of our own country.’ Rabisankar Bal’s audacious novel, told by reflections in a mirror and forged in the fires of hell, is both an oral tale and a shield against oblivion. An echo of distant screams. Inscribed by the devil’s quill, Dozakhnama is an outstanding performance of subterranean memory.

Nicky Marlow needs a job. He’s engaged to be married and the employment market is pretty slim in Britain in 1937. So when his fiancé points out the Spartacus Machine Tool notice, he jumps at the chance. After all, he speaks Italian and he figures he’ll be able to endure Milan for a year, long enough to save some money. Soon after he arrives, however, he learns the sinister truth of his predecessor’s death and finds himself courted by two agents with dangerously different agendas. In the process, Marlow realizes it’s not so simple to just do the job he’s paid to do in fascist Italy on the eve of a world war.

Where better to get away with murder than a place where thousands are dying every day? Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in their thousands every day. So one more death shouldn't be a surprise. But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick Dr John Watson - unable to fight for his country due to injury but able to serve it through his medical expertise - finds his suspicions raised. The face has a blue-ish tinge, the jaw is clamped shut in a terrible rictus and the eyes are almost popping out of his head, as if the man had seen unimaginable horror. Something is terribly wrong. But this is just the beginning. Soon more bodies appear, and Watson must discover who is the killer in the trenches. Who can he trust? Who is the enemy? And can he find the perpetrator before he kills again? Surrounded by unimaginable carnage, amidst a conflict that's ripping the world apart, Watson must for once step out of the shadows and into the limelight if he's to solve the mystery behind the inexplicable deaths. 'A vivid account of life in the trenches…this is a genuinely fascinating and finely researched piece of war fiction' Daily Express 'A hugely powerful depiction of wartime horror, a cunning murder mystery and a brilliant re-invention of Dr John Watson. Conan Doyle would most definitely approve!' Mark Billingham

The tiger moved restlessly around the narrow space into which it was penned. There was light and air beyond the long thick stick things that kept it back but no sign of grass. Just a bare stretch of flat stone. Leaf shadows moved across the empty clearing in front with the gusts of wind. Apart from the rustle of the leaves there was no other sound. Nor were there smells of anything on the air. All the tiger could scent were a few stale smells of people and those died when the wind dropped. No scent of monkeys or deer or any of the other jungle creatures he was used to. It was a young tiger barely old enough to hunt for itself. It was still very confused as to how it had got itself into this narrow space. A tiger is kidnapped and so is a girl - though not at the same time. They find themselves sharing isolation in a hunting lodge that is rumoured to be haunted, at the mercy of an unknown enemy. Who has locked them in and why? What happens when a young tiger is terrified out of its wits and a girl finds herself locked in and forced to fend for herself? Perhaps call for a ghost to come to the rescue? Anjana really does get into the tiger’s skin to bring us never seen before insights into the big cat’s world. - Paro Anand

The kitchen is often the heart of South Asian homes. Muslim South Asian kitchens, in particular, are the engines of an entire culture. The alchemy that takes place within them affects nations and economies, politics and history, and of course human relationships. There is proof of it in Desi Delicacies, Claire Chambers’ anthology of essays, stories and recipes supplied by some of the region’s most well-loved writers, historians and chefs. An unexpected revelation awaits Nadeem Aslam in a London restaurant as he yearns for a special delicacy from Pakistan. Rana Safvi recounts the history of Awadhi cooking and the origins of qorma, while Sadaf Hussain tells us how the samosa came to be paired with chai and of his own newly found love for the beverage. Tabish Khair examines our attitudes towards food that is ‘jootha’. Death comes with an aftertaste of taar roti for the protagonist of Tarana Husain Khan’s story set in Rampur. Gulla puts his heart into making the perfect nardoo yakhni but is taken aback by a hairy surprise in Asiya Zahoor’s ‘The Hairy Curry’. A multitude of flavours blend with love, joy, grief, regret and nostalgia in this book which is not only a beautiful collection of food writing, but also a rich helping of the histories and cultures of Muslim South Asia and its diasporas. With a Foreword by Bina Shah and an Afterword by Siobhan Lambert-Hurley The cover image is a painting from the Nimatnama, a collection of recipes partly compiled during the reign of the moustachioed Sultan Ghiyas-ud-din of the Delhi Sultanate, who features on the cover.