One Drop Of Blood: The Story of Karbala

Ismat Chughtai, Tahira Naqvi

Translated by Tahira Naqvi

Paperback

978-93-85606-25-0

Women Unlimited, 2020

Language: English

440 pages

5.5 x 8.5 inches

INR 575.00

In stock

SKU

978-93-85606-25-0

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 Chughtai is one of Urdu’s most important writers. Feminist by instinct, long before it was fashionable to be one, she was a progressive who knew that literature changes more lives than political pamphlets can. At a time when women were writing only about how to be a good wife and mother, she set about exposing middle class mores and social hypocrisy, through sharp observation and a rapier-like wit. Chughtai is the author of dozens of short stories, four novellas, three novels, essays, reminiscences and plays. With her husband, Shahid Lateef, she produced and co-directed six films and produced six more independently.

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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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