No Woman's Land (Women from Pakistan, India & Bangladesh Write On The Partition Of India)

Never before has a single volume featured non-fiction writing by women from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh on the Partition of India. Here, for the first time, are Ismat Chughtai, Sara Sulery, Anis Kidwai, Phulrenu Guha, Meghna Guhathakurta, Shehla Shibli, Manikuntala Sen, Kamlaben Patel and many others, speaking and writing about communalism and literature; what they learnt from refugees; what Partition means to them 50 years later; and how they define themselves-Hindus? Muslims? Indians? Pakistanis? Bengalis? All of these or none? Either or neither? Not-Indian-not-Pakistani? Bangladeshi not Pakistani? Above all, their accounts raise that most troubling question: do women have a country?

An unusual mix of memoirs, interviews, reminiscences and reflective essays, this anthology is the first attempt to present women's perspective on the Partition of India, based on the experience of three countries.

Ritu Menon is a publisher and writer. She is co-author of Borders and Boundaries: Women in India's Partition, and of Unequal Citizens: A Study of Muslim Women in India; and editor, Unmaking the Nation: a Three-Country Perspective on the Partition of India (forthcoming).