TWO WOMEN WRITERS. TWO CENTURIES. A CREATIVE KINSHIP.
In the royal courts of nineteenth-century Rampur, courtesan–poet Munni Bai Hijab captivates the legendary Urdu poet Dagh Dehlvi, who immortalizes her in his verses while inadvertently eclipsing her voice.
More than a century later, Rukmini, an aspiring writer, stumbles upon Dagh's letters in the archives of the Rampur Raza Library and finds herself drawn to the fierce, flickering presence of Munni Bai Hijab. Torn between worlds–a Hindu woman in a Muslim household, a cosmopolitan spirit in a conservative town–Rukmini begins to trace the forgotten threads of Hijab's story, even as her own life starts to unravel. Her husband chases yet another doomed business idea. Her daughter walks away from medical school. And when her friendship with Daniyal, the stoic guardian of Rampur's past, deepens into desire, Rukmini must confront her greatest fear: becoming her mother, the woman who once walked away from their family.
The Courtesan, Her Lover and I is a haunting novel of longing, ambition and women who dare to write themselves into history.
Review
‘Past and present bounce off each other to fascinating effect in a novel that combines an unusual and disparate set of ingredients, producing from them an irresistible Rampuri korma.’-Anuradha Roy, author of Called by the Hills, All the Lives We Never Lived and Sleeping on Jupiter
'In her languid, capacious and sensitive novel, Khan explores what it means to be a woman, both in the nineteenth century and in the modern day, when so much of the world is stacked up against the expression of a woman's desires and her ambitions. Patiently, verse by verse and with infinite care, Khan uncovers the hidden heart of the tawaif Munni Bai, and also the stifling and casual claustrophobia of a modern marriage.’ –Ira Mukhoty, author of The Lion and the Lily and Daughters of the Sun
'Tarana Husain Khan deftly weaves two love stories across time: the openly celebrated romance of poet Dagh Dehlvi and the famed tawaif Munni Bai "Hijab”, where the
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