Penguin Women Writers – serie

'Some of the more heart-shaking writing about love and grief I've ever read' Kamila Shamsie, from the introductionMeatless Days is a searing memoir of life in the newly-created country of Pakistan. When sudden and shocking tragedies hit the author's family two years apart, her personal crisis spirals into a wider meditation on universal questions: about being a woman when you're too busy being a mother or a sister or a wife to consider your own womanhood; about how it feels to begin life in a new language; about how our lives are changed by the people that leave them. This is a heart-breaking, hopeful and profound book that will get under your skin.'Extraordinary... as an evocation of family love, with all its sharpness, pain and need, Meatless Days is almost faultless' New Statesman

'Gloriously provocative... female sexuality within a patriarchal world is Chughtai's central concern' Kamila Shamsie, winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018, from the introduction Lifting the Veil is a bold and irreverent collection of writing from India's most controversial feminist writer. These stories celebrate life in all its complexities: from a woman who refuses marriage to a man she loves to preserve her freedom, to a Hindu and a Muslim teenager pulled apart by societal pressures, to eye-opening personal accounts of the charges of obscenity the author faced in court for stories found in this book. Wickedly funny and unflinchingly honest, Lifting the Veil explores the power of female sexuality while slyly mocking the subtle tyrannies of middle-class life. In 1940s India, an unlikely setting for female rebellion, Ismat Chughtai was a rare and radical storyteller born years ahead of her time.'Ismat Chughtai is known for her iconoclastic, feminist writings which explored the inner workings of women's lives' Huffington Post

'Gloriously provocative... female sexuality within a patriarchal world is Chughtai's central concern' Kamila Shamsie, from the introduction Lifting the Veil is a bold and irreverent collection of writing from India's most controversial feminist writer. These stories celebrate life in all its complexities: from a woman who refuses marriage to a man she loves to preserve her freedom, to a Hindu and a Muslim teenager pulled apart by societal pressures, to eye-opening personal accounts of the charges of obscenity the author faced in court for stories found in this book. Wickedly funny and unflinchingly honest, Lifting the Veil explores the power of female sexuality while slyly mocking the subtle tyrannies of middle-class life. In 1940s India, an unlikely setting for female rebellion, Ismat Chughtai was a rare and radical storyteller born years ahead of her time.'Ismat Chughtai is known for her iconoclastic, feminist writings which explored the inner workings of women's lives' Huffington Post

'A charming and brilliantly entertaining novel... shot through with the light-hearted Nesbit touch' Penelope Lively, from the introduction"When did two girls of our age have such a chance as we've got - to have a lark entirely on our own? No chaperone, no rules, no...""No present income or future prospects," said Lucilla.It's 1919 and Jane and her cousin Lucilla leave school to find that their guardian has gambled away their money, leaving them with only a small cottage in the English countryside. In an attempt to earn their living, the orphaned cousins embark on a series of misadventures - cutting flowers from their front garden and selling them to passers-by, inviting paying guests who disappear without paying - all the while endeavouring to stave off the attentions of male admirers, in a bid to secure their independence.'To come upon any Nesbit today, hitherto unread... is like receiving a letter from a friend whom you have believed dead' New York Times'A wry, charming delight of a book' The Pool