Advanced Search Request a Book

ORDERS

Readings Orders 0

DEMANDS

Readings Demands 0

The Upstairs Wife: an Intimate History Of Pakistan
[Paperback - 2016]
rafia zakaria
On Demand
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $18
Our Price: Rs.4245 Rs.3608
Standard Discount: 15%
You Save: Rs.637
Sub-category: Memoirs
Publisher: Beacon Press | ISBN: 9780807080467 | Pages: 264
Shipping Weight: | Dimensions:

Description

A memoir of Karachi through the eyes of its women An Indies Introduce Debut Authors Selection For a brief moment on December 27, 2007, life came to a standstill in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto, the country’s former prime minister and the first woman ever to lead a Muslim country, had been assassinated at a political rally just outside Islamabad. Back in Karachi—Bhutto’s birthplace and Pakistan’s other great metropolis—Rafia Zakaria’s family was suffering through a crisis of its own: her Uncle Sohail, the man who had brought shame upon the family, was near death. In that moment these twin catastrophes—one political and public, the other secret and intensely personal—briefly converged. Zakaria uses that moment to begin her intimate exploration of the country of her birth. Her Muslim-Indian family immigrated to Pakistan from Bombay in 1962, escaping the precarious state in which the Muslim population in India found itself following the Partition. For them, Pakistan represented enormous promise. And for some time, Zakaria’s family prospered and the city prospered. But in the 1980s, Pakistan’s military dictators began an Islamization campaign designed to legitimate their rule—a campaign that particularly affected women’s freedom and safety. The political became personal when her aunt Amina’s husband, Sohail, did the unthinkable and took a second wife, a humiliating and painful betrayal of kin and custom that shook the foundation of Zakaria’s family but was permitted under the country’s new laws. The young Rafia grows up in the shadow of Amina’s shame and fury, while the world outside her home turns ever more chaotic and violent as the opportunities available to post-Partition immigrants are dramatically curtailed and terrorism sows its seeds in Karachi. Telling the parallel stories of Amina’s polygamous marriage and Pakistan’s hopes and betrayals, The Upstairs Wife is an intimate exploration of the disjunction between exalted dreams and complicated realities.

About the Author

Rafia Zakaria is an attorney, political philosopher, human rights activist, and author of two books: The Upstairs Wife (selected as one of the Most Important Nonfiction Books of the Year by Newsweek) and Veil, part of the Bloomsbury Object Lessons series. Her writing on global feminist and immigrant issues has appeared in The Baffler and DAWN (Pakistan s largest English-language daily), where she writes regular columns, as well as in the New York Times, Guardian, New Republic, Nation, CNN Opinion and more. Zakaria is currently a Research Scholar at the Colin Powell Center for Civic Leadership at City College New York. Born and raised in Karachi, she now lives in Indiana.

Bestsellers in Bio & Autobiography

View All
Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, And Life's Greatest Lesson
[Paperback - 2006]
mitch albom
In Stock
List Price: $8.99
Our Price: Rs.1195 Rs.1075
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.120
The Letters Of Vincent Van Gogh (Translation)
[Paperback - 1996]
van gogh
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: Rs.2295 Rs.2065
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.230
Long Walk To Freedom
[Paperback - 2013]
nelson mandela
In Stock
List Price: £14.99
Our Price: Rs.2995 Rs.2695
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.300
Letters To Milena
[Paperback - 2018]
franz kafka
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2245 Rs.2020
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.225
Night
[Paperback - 2006]
elie wiesel
Out of Stock
Availability in 4-6 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: $12.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
Crying In H Mart: 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Winner
[Paperback - 2022]
michelle zauner
In Stock
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: Rs.2145 Rs.1930
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.215
Ecce Homo
[Paperback - 2004]
friedrich nietzsche
In Stock
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: Rs.2195 Rs.1975
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.220
Diana: Her True Story-In Her Own Words
[Paperback - 2019]
andrew morton
Out of Stock
Availability in 2-4 weeks on receipt of order
List Price: £10.99
Our Price: Rs.2745 Rs.2470
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.275
Mr & Mrs Jinnah: The Marriage That Shook India
[Paperback - 2022]
sheela reddy
In Stock
List Price: Rs.1395
Our Price: Rs.1395 Rs.1255
Standard Discount: 10%
You Save: Rs.140
Spare: The Duke Of Sussex
[Hardback - 2023]
prince harry
In Stock
List Price: £28
Our Price: Rs.4995 Rs.2497
Standard Discount: 50%
You Save: Rs.2498