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The Women's Courtyard

Foreword by Kamila Shamsie
Afterword by Daisy Rockwell
Translated by Daisy Rockwell
Paperback
$18.00 US
5-1/16"W x 7-3/4"H (12.9 x 19.7 cm) | 8 oz (234 g) | 24 per carton
On sale Jul 15, 2025 | 320 Pages | 9780143138068
Sales rights: World
A feminist classic of Partition literature in a newly revised translation by Booker Prize-winning translator Daisy Rockwell.

A Penguin Classic


Set in the turbulent decade of the 1940s, The Women's Courtyard provides an inverted perspective on the Partition. Mastur’s novel is conspicuously empty of the political pondering and large national questions that played out, typically, in the arenas of men. Instead, it gives expression to the preoccupations of the women in the courtyard, fighting different battles with loud voices. The novel follows a Muslim girl, Aliya, and her family, about and around the climax of the Independence struggle. While the national struggle rages on the street, Aliya and the other women in the courtyard are tethered hopelessly to their own problems of life and death. The Women’s Courtyard is an experience in suffocation. Within the strict religious and social framework of a rigid Muslim family, there is a purdah between Aliya and the rest of the world. While the men in Aliya’s family wage politics, get beaten up, and go to jail in the unseen outside, their families back home are forced to wait in deteriorating conditions, trying desperately to hold up the social structure that confines them.
Khadija Mastur was an award-winning Pakistani short story writer and novelist who was highly regarded in Urdu literature. Her novel Aangan (The Women’s Courtyard) is widely considered a literary masterpiece in Urdu literature and has also been made into a television drama. Mastoor was born in 1927 in Bareilly, India. She migrated to Lahore with her family after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 and settled there. Mastur wrote with conviction on patriarchy, classism, chauvinism and misogyny. She saw them as “systemic poisons that destroy and kill women intellectually, emotionally and physically”. Daisy Rockwell (translator) is an artist, writer, and Hindi-Urdu translator. She has translated numerous classic literary works from Hindi and Urdu into English, including Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas and Khadija Mastur's The Women's Courtyard. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2020, she was the winner of MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglioni Prize for Translation of a Literary Work for Krishna Sobti’s A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There. In 2023 she was awarded the Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award. Kamila Shamsie (foreword) is the author of eight novels, which have been translated into over 30 languages. Her novels include Home Fire (2018) which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and was long listed for the Man Booker Prize, Burnt Shadows which won the Premio Boccaccio in Italy, and  A God in Every Stone which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award. Four of her novels have also won awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A Vice-President and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she was one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ in 2013. She grew up in Karachi, has an MFA from the University of Manchester in Amherst, and now lives in London.
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About

A feminist classic of Partition literature in a newly revised translation by Booker Prize-winning translator Daisy Rockwell.

A Penguin Classic


Set in the turbulent decade of the 1940s, The Women's Courtyard provides an inverted perspective on the Partition. Mastur’s novel is conspicuously empty of the political pondering and large national questions that played out, typically, in the arenas of men. Instead, it gives expression to the preoccupations of the women in the courtyard, fighting different battles with loud voices. The novel follows a Muslim girl, Aliya, and her family, about and around the climax of the Independence struggle. While the national struggle rages on the street, Aliya and the other women in the courtyard are tethered hopelessly to their own problems of life and death. The Women’s Courtyard is an experience in suffocation. Within the strict religious and social framework of a rigid Muslim family, there is a purdah between Aliya and the rest of the world. While the men in Aliya’s family wage politics, get beaten up, and go to jail in the unseen outside, their families back home are forced to wait in deteriorating conditions, trying desperately to hold up the social structure that confines them.

Author

Khadija Mastur was an award-winning Pakistani short story writer and novelist who was highly regarded in Urdu literature. Her novel Aangan (The Women’s Courtyard) is widely considered a literary masterpiece in Urdu literature and has also been made into a television drama. Mastoor was born in 1927 in Bareilly, India. She migrated to Lahore with her family after the independence of Pakistan in 1947 and settled there. Mastur wrote with conviction on patriarchy, classism, chauvinism and misogyny. She saw them as “systemic poisons that destroy and kill women intellectually, emotionally and physically”. Daisy Rockwell (translator) is an artist, writer, and Hindi-Urdu translator. She has translated numerous classic literary works from Hindi and Urdu into English, including Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas and Khadija Mastur's The Women's Courtyard. Her translation of Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand was the winner of the 2022 International Booker Prize and the 2022 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation. In 2020, she was the winner of MLA’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglioni Prize for Translation of a Literary Work for Krishna Sobti’s A Gujarat Here, a Gujarat There. In 2023 she was awarded the Vani Foundation Distinguished Translator Award. Kamila Shamsie (foreword) is the author of eight novels, which have been translated into over 30 languages. Her novels include Home Fire (2018) which won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and was long listed for the Man Booker Prize, Burnt Shadows which won the Premio Boccaccio in Italy, and  A God in Every Stone which won the Anisfield-Wolf Award. Four of her novels have also won awards from the Pakistan Academy of Letters. A Vice-President and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she was one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ in 2013. She grew up in Karachi, has an MFA from the University of Manchester in Amherst, and now lives in London.

Rights

Available for sale exclusive:
•     Afghanistan
•     Aland Islands
•     Albania
•     Algeria
•     Andorra
•     Angola
•     Anguilla
•     Antarctica
•     Antigua/Barbuda
•     Argentina
•     Armenia
•     Aruba
•     Australia
•     Austria
•     Azerbaijan
•     Bahamas
•     Bahrain
•     Barbados
•     Belarus
•     Belgium
•     Belize
•     Benin
•     Bermuda
•     Bolivia
•     Bonaire, Saba
•     Bosnia Herzeg.
•     Botswana
•     Bouvet Island
•     Brazil
•     Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter
•     Brit.Virgin Is.
•     Brunei
•     Bulgaria
•     Burkina Faso
•     Burundi
•     Cambodia
•     Cameroon
•     Canada
•     Cape Verde
•     Cayman Islands
•     Centr.Afr.Rep.
•     Chad
•     Chile
•     China
•     Christmas Islnd
•     Cocos Islands
•     Colombia
•     Comoro Is.
•     Congo
•     Cook Islands
•     Costa Rica
•     Croatia
•     Cuba
•     Curacao
•     Cyprus
•     Czech Republic
•     Dem. Rep. Congo
•     Denmark
•     Djibouti
•     Dominica
•     Dominican Rep.
•     Ecuador
•     Egypt
•     El Salvador
•     Equatorial Gui.
•     Eritrea
•     Estonia
•     Ethiopia
•     Falkland Islnds
•     Faroe Islands
•     Fiji
•     Finland
•     France
•     Fren.Polynesia
•     French Guinea
•     Gabon
•     Gambia
•     Georgia
•     Germany
•     Ghana
•     Gibraltar
•     Greece
•     Greenland
•     Grenada
•     Guadeloupe
•     Guam
•     Guatemala
•     Guernsey
•     Guinea Republic
•     Guinea-Bissau
•     Guyana
•     Haiti
•     Heard/McDon.Isl
•     Honduras
•     Hong Kong
•     Hungary
•     Iceland
•     Indonesia
•     Iran
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•     Kyrgyzstan
•     Laos
•     Latvia
•     Lebanon
•     Lesotho
•     Liberia
•     Libya
•     Liechtenstein
•     Lithuania
•     Luxembourg
•     Macau
•     Macedonia
•     Madagascar
•     Malawi
•     Malaysia
•     Mali
•     Malta
•     Marshall island
•     Martinique
•     Mauritania
•     Mauritius
•     Mayotte
•     Mexico
•     Micronesia
•     Minor Outl.Ins.
•     Moldavia
•     Monaco
•     Mongolia
•     Montenegro
•     Montserrat
•     Morocco
•     Mozambique
•     Myanmar
•     Namibia
•     Nauru
•     Netherlands
•     New Caledonia
•     New Zealand
•     Nicaragua
•     Niger
•     Nigeria
•     Niue
•     Norfolk Island
•     North Korea
•     North Mariana
•     Norway
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•     Saint Martin
•     Samoa,American
•     San Marino
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•     Saudi Arabia
•     Senegal
•     Serbia
•     Seychelles
•     Sierra Leone
•     Singapore
•     Sint Maarten
•     Slovakia
•     Slovenia
•     Solomon Islands
•     Somalia
•     South Africa
•     South Korea
•     South Sudan
•     Spain
•     St Barthelemy
•     St. Helena
•     St. Lucia
•     St. Vincent
•     St.Chr.,Nevis
•     St.Pier,Miquel.
•     Sth Terr. Franc
•     Sudan
•     Suriname
•     Svalbard
•     Swaziland
•     Sweden
•     Switzerland
•     Syria
•     Tadschikistan
•     Taiwan
•     Tanzania
•     Thailand
•     Timor-Leste
•     Togo
•     Tokelau Islands
•     Tonga
•     Trinidad,Tobago
•     Tunisia
•     Turkey
•     Turkmenistan
•     Turks&Caicos Is
•     Tuvalu
•     US Virgin Is.
•     USA
•     Uganda
•     Ukraine
•     Unit.Arab Emir.
•     United Kingdom
•     Uruguay
•     Uzbekistan
•     Vanuatu
•     Vatican City
•     Venezuela
•     Vietnam
•     Wallis,Futuna
•     West Saharan
•     Western Samoa
•     Yemen
•     Zambia
•     Zimbabwe

Not available for sale:
•     Bangladesh
•     Bhutan
•     India
•     Maldives
•     Nepal
•     Pakistan
•     Sri Lanka