This volume brings together insightful and engaging perspectives on Ismat Chughtai’s enduring significance as a writer who was at once progressive and playfully subversive. Revisiting her life, work and legacy, the essays explore a rich range of themes—from her dialogues with cinema, literature and cultural politics to her place within the Left imagination of the Bombay film industry.
The collection also reads Chughtai alongside Sa'adat Hasan Manto and Ritwik Ghatak to illuminate the cultural memory of Partition, examines her depiction of the intimacy of the zenana as part of the history of the nation, probes her complex persona through psychoanalytic lenses, and reflects on her fiercely independent voice within the literary politics of the Progressive movement. Together, these essays offer a nuanced and compelling reappraisal of one of the most distinctive voices in modern Indian literature.
The editors
The editors of this volume, Debashree Dattaray and Epsita Halder, are Professors in the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.
Acknowledgements General Introduction Introduction
1. The Unyielding Yen: Chughtai, Kaushal, Sehgal, and All that which Drove Indian Cinema of 1940s–50s Madhuja Mukherjee
2. In Search of No Man’s Land: Chughtai, Manto and Ghatak Manas Ghosh
3. Casements of Selfhood: Khakas (pen-portraits) by/of Ismat Chughtai Fatima Rizvi and Kakul Hai
4. Between the Erotic and the Social in Ismat Chughtai’s Short Stories Kiran Keshavamurthy
5. Socialist Realism and the Progressive Movement in Urdu Literature Kunal Chattopadhyay
6. The Fabric of the Story: Chughtai’s Craft Sucheta Bhattacharya
7. A Changing Mind, a Changing Body: Understanding the Journey into Female Adolescence through Terhi Lakeer and Lal Tin Ki Chhat Urmi Sengupta
8. Codes of Censorship in Pre-Independence India: An Analysis of Chughtai and the Progressives Debjani Chakrabarty
9. The Possibilities of a Genre: Reading the Life Writings of Ismat Chughtai and Amrita Pritam Krishnendu Pal
Editors and Contributors