ONE DROP OF BLOOD

The Story of Karbala

Ismat Chughtai

Translated by : Tahira Naqvi

9789385606250

Women Unlimited 2020

Language: English

440 Pages

In Stock!

Price INR 575.0 Not Available

Book Club Price INR 460.0 USD

About the Book

One Drop of Blood is a passionate retelling of the timeless tale of the life of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, from the early days spent in Rasulullah’s company, up to the epic, bloody Battle of Karbala, in which their small army of family and friends clashed with the savage forces of Yazid, the reigning Caliph. Ismat Chughtai takes her readers by surprise in this, her last, novel, adapting the complex Islamic account of the sorrow and suffering of Husain’s family in Karbala and making it her own by transforming the sublime, revered individuals into real people. Her controversial, fictionalised rendering humanises the tragic encounters on the battlefield, immortalising the sacrifice of Imam Husain and his family in prose that has the same lyrical force as her original inspiration, Anis’ marsiyas.

Ismat Chughtai
ISMAT CHUGTAI (1915-1991), one of Urdu's boldest and most outspoken women writers, played an important role in the development of the modern Urdu short story as we know it today. Not only did she make strides in the areas of style and technique, she also led her female contemporaries on a remarkable journey of self-awareness and undaunted creative expression. Women Unlimited and Kali for Women pioneered the translation of much of Chugtai's work in English, making available her most significant writings for the first time. Among these are My Friend, My Enemy: Essays, Reminiscences, Portraits (Kali for Women, 2001), A Chugtai Collection [which includes "The Quilt and Other Stories", "The Heart Breaks Free" and "The Wild One" (Women Unlimited, 2003), The Crooked Line (Women Unlimited, 2003) and A Very strange Man (Women Unlimited, forthcoming).

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Tahira Naqvi

Tahira Naqvi is a translator, writer, and Clinical Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, where she teaches Urdu language and literature. She has translated the works of Sa’adat Hasan Manto, Khadija Mastur, Hajra Masroor, and the majority of works by Ismat Chughtai, into English. She has published two collections of short stories, Attar of Roses and Other Stories of Pakistan and Dying in a Strange Country. The History Teacher of Lahore is her first novel. Naqvi grew up in Lahore.

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