'Gloriously provocative... female sexuality within a patriarchal world is Chughtai's central
concern' Kamila Shamsie winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 from the
introductionLifting the Veil is a bold and irreverent collection of writing from India's most
controversial feminist writer. These stories celebrate life in all its complexities: from a
woman who refuses marriage to a man she loves to preserve her freedom to a Hindu and a Muslim
teenager pulled apart by societal pressures to eye-opening personal accounts of the charges of
obscenity the author faced in court for stories found in this book.Wickedly funny and
unflinchingly honest Lifting the Veil explores the power of female sexuality while slyly
mocking the subtle tyrannies of middle-class life. In 1940s India an unlikely setting for
female rebellion Ismat Chughtai was a rare and radical storyteller born years ahead of her
time.'Ismat Chughtai is known for her iconoclastic feminist writings which explored the inner
workings of women's lives' Huffington Post
