Outside Women: A Novel
Would you risk your own life to pursue justice for a stranger? Two migrant women—separated by geographies and generations—face this same devastating choice.

Lured away from her home in 1890s India, Sita is brought to South Africa as an indentured servant—one among millions funneled by the British to replace the recently abolished slave trade. One hundred years later, Hajra, a Pakistani scholar, is forced to flee her home in Peshawar after witnessing a violent act meant to target her. In New York City, she loses herself in academic research until she comes face-to-face with a photo of a laughing, defiant young woman brandishing a banner in protest. Inexorably drawn to this woman, Hajra travels to South Africa to learn more and unknowingly traces Sita's path.

With raw imagery and rich sensory detail, Roohi Choudhry's incandescent debut novel Outside Women intertwines the narratives of two women painfully yet valiantly carving their existences outside of patriarchal and colonial spaces as they search for kinship and strength in solidarity.

1145608871
Outside Women: A Novel
Would you risk your own life to pursue justice for a stranger? Two migrant women—separated by geographies and generations—face this same devastating choice.

Lured away from her home in 1890s India, Sita is brought to South Africa as an indentured servant—one among millions funneled by the British to replace the recently abolished slave trade. One hundred years later, Hajra, a Pakistani scholar, is forced to flee her home in Peshawar after witnessing a violent act meant to target her. In New York City, she loses herself in academic research until she comes face-to-face with a photo of a laughing, defiant young woman brandishing a banner in protest. Inexorably drawn to this woman, Hajra travels to South Africa to learn more and unknowingly traces Sita's path.

With raw imagery and rich sensory detail, Roohi Choudhry's incandescent debut novel Outside Women intertwines the narratives of two women painfully yet valiantly carving their existences outside of patriarchal and colonial spaces as they search for kinship and strength in solidarity.

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Outside Women: A Novel

Outside Women: A Novel

by Roohi Choudhry
Outside Women: A Novel

Outside Women: A Novel

by Roohi Choudhry

Overview

Would you risk your own life to pursue justice for a stranger? Two migrant women—separated by geographies and generations—face this same devastating choice.

Lured away from her home in 1890s India, Sita is brought to South Africa as an indentured servant—one among millions funneled by the British to replace the recently abolished slave trade. One hundred years later, Hajra, a Pakistani scholar, is forced to flee her home in Peshawar after witnessing a violent act meant to target her. In New York City, she loses herself in academic research until she comes face-to-face with a photo of a laughing, defiant young woman brandishing a banner in protest. Inexorably drawn to this woman, Hajra travels to South Africa to learn more and unknowingly traces Sita's path.

With raw imagery and rich sensory detail, Roohi Choudhry's incandescent debut novel Outside Women intertwines the narratives of two women painfully yet valiantly carving their existences outside of patriarchal and colonial spaces as they search for kinship and strength in solidarity.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781985901964
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Publication date: 03/25/2025
Series: University Press of Kentucky New Poetry & Prose Series
Pages: 320
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Roohi Choudhry was born in Pakistan and grew up in southern Africa. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship and residencies at Hedgebrook and Djerassi. She worked as a researcher in criminal justice reform and public health, wrote for the United Nations, and facilitates creative writing workshops for community organizations. Her stories and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Callaloo, Longreads, and the Kenyon Review. Find her online at roohichoudhry.com.

Table of Contents

1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
21. Twenty-one
22. Twenty-two
23. Twenty-three
24. Twenty-four
25. Twenty-five
26. Twenty-six

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