The Silence That Speaks: Short Stories by Indian Muslim Women

This ground-breaking anthology brings together 38 short stories culled from over a century of writing by Muslim women from colonial and postcolonial India. Selected from different Indian languages, it includes fascinating stories by celebrated and emerging authors. It also excavates stories from early women’s journals such as Tehzeeb-e-Niswan, Saogat, and Indian Ladies’ Magazine. Written in different styles, modes, and forms, the stories deconstruct cultural essentialism often involved in imagining Muslim womanhood and reflect upon the diversity of imagined and lived experiences. They challenge sundry labels, explore intersections of identities, debunk several myths, and demonstrate how the authors navigate the world of voices and silences. Ranging from imaginary geographies to topographies of Muslim ghettos, most of these powerful stories narrate the spaces that Muslim women inhabit, and delineate their courage, desires, freedom, struggle, and myriad subjectivities.