**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 1940s India, The Women's Courtyard illuminates a unique perspective on the Partition. The novel follows the struggles of a Muslim family from the perspective of the youngest daughter, Aliya, during the years that lead to Independence. Mastur’s novel is conspicuously empty of the politicking a...

The Fall 2025 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporary American literature, and now provides readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in a variety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton among minnows.”The Fall 2025 issue features longform prose by Juliana Lamy, Eric McMil...

WINNER OF THE 2022 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE"A triumph of literature."—Financial Times"Echoes of James Joyce, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende and Leo Tolstoy. . . . An enchanting ride."—BookPage"A breath of fresh air."—GuardianA playful, feminist, and utterly original epic of Indian literature in translation, set in contemporary northern India, about a family and the inimitable oc...

**An essential novel about the 1947 Partition in a newly revised translation by Booker Prize-winning translator Daisy RockwellA Penguin Classic**Bhisham Sahni’s 1973 novel is a chronicle of the sectarian violence that ultimately led to the devastation of the Partition. It drew immediate and universal critical acclaim for its poignant and striking depiction of the anatomy of a bloody conflagration that comes to engulf an entire region. In a northwestern city in pre-Independe...

An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a hijra person – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more 'modern' of the two. At the older woman's insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and ...

“I highlighted just about every line in this book, and I can’t think of a better novel to make sense of our current era.” —Molly Odintz, CrimeReadsFrom the International Booker Prize-winning author-translator duo of Tomb of Sand, a powerful, kaleidoscopic novel about a fractured society, loosely based on the gathering violence that eventuated in the demolition of the Babri Mosque by religious extremists in 1992.In an unnamed city in India, a wave of sectar...

Winner, English PEN x SALT Award 2025 From the International Booker Prize-winning author-translator duo of Tomb of Sand, a powerful, kaleidoscopic novel about a fractured India, caught between rising fundamentalism and waning progressive ideals. A city teeters on the edge of chaos. A society lies fractured along fault lines of faith and ideology. A playground becomes a battleground. A looming silence grips the public. Against this backdrop, Shruti, a writer paralysed by the weight of event...

'Tamas, in either Rockwell's translation or the original Hindi, remains an essential text for the times'Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard'Tamas is a prophetic warning against the use of religion as a weapon to gain and perpetuate political power' GOVIND NIHALANIIn a city in undivided Punjab, Nathu, a tanner, is bribed to kill a pig. When the animal's carcas...

Aliya lives a life confined to the inner courtyard of her home with her older sister and irritable mother, while the men of the family throw themselves into the political movements of the day. She is tormented by the petty squabbles of the household and dreams of educating herself and venturing into the wider world. But Aliya must endure many trials before she achieves her goals, though at what personal cost? Set in the 1940s, with Partition looming on the horizon, The Women's Courtyard cl...

Delhi, 1947. The city surges with Partition refugees. Eager to escape the welter of pain and confusion that surrounds her, young Krishna applies on a whim to a position at a preschool in the princely state of Sirohi, itself on the cusp of transitioning into the republic of India. She is greeted on arrival with condescension for her refugee status, and treated with sexist disdain by Zutshi Sahib, the man charged with hiring for the position. Undaunted, Krishna fights back. But when an oppor...