A Chughtai Quartet

The four novellas in this volume span the inimitable Ismat Chughtai s literary career from 1939 to 1971. Each one develops the author s central preoccupation with the lives of women as they experience love tragedy societal prescriptions and proscriptions in collision with their own rebellious spirit. A keen sense of their individual subversive potential and a willingness to take the consequences of obduracy in the face of overwhelming odds ensures that they are neither hapless nor victims. Through them Chughtai delivers a scathing critique on the hypocrisy and cant of social mores and the festering maladies that infect society. . Chughtai s characteristic mastery of form and technique her vivid imagery and richness of language make for marvellous story-telling and create some of the most memorable female protagonists in Indian literature.