Love and Life Behind the Purdah

Love and Life Behind the Purdah (1901) is a collection of short stories by Indian writer, lawyer, and social reformer Cornelia Sorabji. Raised by Christian missionaries, Sorabji trained as a lawyer at Oxford University before returning to India to work with women and orphans across the country. Her fictional work illustrates a creative imagination and well-rounded sense of the diverse political and religious identities that make up the population of India.

In her first published book, Sorabji spins tales of women and children from varied sociopolitical backgrounds. Writing on the Hindu purdahnashin—women cut off from the outside world—Sorabji drew on her experience as a litigator representing these oppressed figures in legal cases regarding property rights and other instances of oppression. Other stories in the collection follow Zoroastrian priestesses and the lives of orphaned children, character studies which serve as crucial catalysts for the discussion of child marriage, the practice of sati, and other controversial traditions prominent in India in the nineteenth century. Love and Life Behind the Purdah is a beautiful, informative meditation on the necessity of perseverance in the face of famine, disease, silence, and death. A lawyer at heart, Sorabji weaves powerful political commentary into her vibrant prose portraits of women and children down, but never out.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Cornelia Sorabji’s Love and Life Behind the Purdah is a classic work of Indian literature reimagined for modern readers.