Translation brings alive Wajida Tabassum's works in English

A new anthology in English brings alive the works of Wajida Tabassum, one of the foremost women writers in Urdu who took on societal taboos with her bold writing.

''Sin'' showcases Tabassum's boldest short stories, alongside the story of her own life, translated for the first time into English by Pakistani journalist and writer Reema Abbasi.

Known for her audacious and semi-erotic stories and her formidable power of storytelling, Tabassum captures, in riveting prose, the spectrum of depravity among Hyderabad's elite, middle-class compulsions in the mid-twentieth century, and blurred lines of decency and decorum.

The four sections in the volume deal with dark, debauched and tragic aspects of life and are structured on the theme of the 'deadly sins', namely lust, pride, greed and envy.

The story of Tabassum in her own words, 'Meri Kahaani', written when she was only 24, forms the centre of the volume. It provides insight into her work and is an exquisite testament of a bold and original writer.

Set in Hyderabad's old-world aristocratic society of the 1950s, this collection of stories, published by Hachette India, features lascivious nawabs, lustful begums, cunning servants, and unfulfilled marriages marked by peculiar rituals and customs.

Tabassum (1935-2011) lived in the princely state of Hyderabad Deccan and was a writer of fiction, verses and songs in Urdu. One of the foremost women writers in the language, she was known for her audacious and semi-erotic stories and her formidable power of storytelling.

Her bold writing, through which she took on societal taboos, was seen as immoral and scandalous and faced many public protests. Otherwise a woman who lived in purdah, Tabassum chose to write about strong and uncomfortable themes that made her 'unpopular' with the Indian society of the mid-1900s.

During the 1960s and 1970s, her stories were published in India in many magazines. Her books include ''Teh Khana'', ''Kaise Samjhaoon'', ''Phul Khilne Do'', ''Zakhm-e-Dil Aur Mahak Aur Mahak'', and ''Zan, Zar, Zameen'', which was her last work, published in 1989.

Abbasi decided to translate Tabassum's work into English as she wanted to reach to a wider audience the voices of Wajida's women, their silent despair and their eventual detonation.

''I selected these stories because they, like a deep, profound alto, struck the gut and reverberated in the heart,'' she says.

''Wajida's furious persistence in the pursuit of equality for the women in her stories connects with stunning precision to the dilemmas that confront women in modern times,'' she adds.

According to Karachi-based Abbasi, Tabassum captures the power of subliminal and the subconscious with precision and subtlety.

''Themes of impotence, powerplay, betrayal and abandonment run through most of the stories. They almost serve as quiet metaphors for the downfall of the nobility,'' she writes in the translator's note in the book, published by Hachette India.