The Heart Divided

Nawaz, Mumtaz Shah

Verlag: Mumtaz Publications, Lahore, 1957

[light shelfwear, binding a little compromised in the early part of the book (a couple of signatures slightly shaken, but no loose or detached pages), longish gift inscription on ffep (see notes), slight rippling in cloth near bottom sections of both covers; jacket has a 1/2" chip at top left corner of front panel, a little paper loss at spine extremities, some fading to spine lettering]. Purported to be the first South Asian English-language novel to be set against the background of the political turmoil in the Indian subcontinent during the 1930s, which ultimately led (in 1947) to the partitioning of the region into the separate nations of India and Pakistan. The book covers the period 1930 to 1942, and the primary story is your basic Romeo-and-Juliet plot -- "the drama of frustrated love of a Muslim young man and a high caste Hindu girl" and their respective families, in whose lives "we perceive the rift which even the pressure of British imperial control did not quite close." There is plenty of political content throughout, and in the words of one latter-day critic the book provides "almost a documentary account of the life of children in a well-to-do Muslim family in Lahore in the 30s." This mirrors the background of the author herself, born to a prominent Muslim family in Lahore in 1912. Rejecting her traditionally-defined role in society, she became one of the first Muslim women to get a university education and was deeply involved in socialist politics (including workers' rights and the emancipation of women) for most of her adult life. Known as "Tazi," Nawaz was an active public speaker and also achieved great popularity as a poet. She eventually aligned herself (in 1942) with the Muslim League and set up its women's wing in Delhi; her participation in the League's massive civil disobedience campaign in the period leading up to the partition landed her in jail for a time, and following partition she founded the Women's Volunteer Service to deal with the resulting refugee crisis. She had been on her way to America to speak about the situation in Pakistan and to attend a United Nations meeting when she was killed in a plane crane in 1948. This novel, written between 1943 and 1948, was unfinished and unpublished at the time of her death, and was edited and arranged for publication almost a decade later, with her mother supplying a brief preface; somewhat ironically, it wasn't published in India itself until a paperback edition appeared in 2004. (Interestingly the unsigned gift inscription on the ffep -- dated Chicago, Dec. 28 1969 -- includes the following postscript: "Also consider this book a gift from Jahan Ara Shaw Nawaz, mother of 'Tazi' Shaw Naraz (author of this book), who is also our very dear friend.") Dust-jacketed copies of the original edition are uncommon. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 21339

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Heart Divided
Verlag: Mumtaz Publications, Lahore
Erscheinungsdatum: 1957
Einband: Hardcover
Zustand: Very Good
Zustand des Schutzumschlags: Good dj
Auflage: First Edition.