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Unbound: 2000 Years of Indian Women's Writing
Unbound is a collection of some of the most significant writing by Indian women over the past two thousand years. Divided into eleven sections, it encompasses writing on various aspects of life: spirituality, love, marriage, children, food, work, social and individual identity, battles, myths and fables, travel, and death. While many of the pieces are commentaries on the struggle that women undergo to overcome obstacles-social and political-all of them showcase the remarkable creative ability of
376 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2015
23 people are currently reading
497 people want to read
About the author
Annie Zaidi
20 books356 followersAnnie Zaidi writes poetry, essays, fiction, and scripts for the stage and the screen.
She is the author of The Comeback (2025), City of Incident: A novel in twelve parts (2021), and Prelude to a Riot, which won the Tata prize for fiction (2020). She is a recipient of the Nine Dots prize (2019) for Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocation.
Her other books include Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (collection of essays, short-listed for the Crossword Book Award (non- fiction) in 2010, Gulab (novella), Love Stories # 1 to 14 (short stories), and The Good Indian Girl (co-authored with Smriti Ravindra), and Crush (poetry).
She is also the editor of 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian women's Writing' and of 'Equal Halves'.
Her work has appeared in various anthologies, including Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; India Shining, India Changing, and in literary journals like the Griffith Review, The Massachusetts Review, Big Bridge, Out of Print, and The Aleph Review.
Her work as a playwright has been performed and read in several cities. She received The Hindu Playwright Award (2018) for Untitled 1. Her radio script ‘Jam’ was named regional (South Asia) winner for the BBC’s International Playwriting Competition (2011).
She has also written and directed several short films and the documentary film, In her words: The journey of Indian women.
She is the author of The Comeback (2025), City of Incident: A novel in twelve parts (2021), and Prelude to a Riot, which won the Tata prize for fiction (2020). She is a recipient of the Nine Dots prize (2019) for Bread, Cement, Cactus: A memoir of belonging and dislocation.
Her other books include Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales (collection of essays, short-listed for the Crossword Book Award (non- fiction) in 2010, Gulab (novella), Love Stories # 1 to 14 (short stories), and The Good Indian Girl (co-authored with Smriti Ravindra), and Crush (poetry).
She is also the editor of 'Unbound: 2,000 Years of Indian women's Writing' and of 'Equal Halves'.
Her work has appeared in various anthologies, including Mumbai Noir; Women Changing India; India Shining, India Changing, and in literary journals like the Griffith Review, The Massachusetts Review, Big Bridge, Out of Print, and The Aleph Review.
Her work as a playwright has been performed and read in several cities. She received The Hindu Playwright Award (2018) for Untitled 1. Her radio script ‘Jam’ was named regional (South Asia) winner for the BBC’s International Playwriting Competition (2011).
She has also written and directed several short films and the documentary film, In her words: The journey of Indian women.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 7, 2017
From Mahasweta Devi to Arundhati Roy to K.R. Meera to Nivedita Menon to Temsula Ao to Pinki Virani, this humongous anthology has all the contemporary writers to names we have never heard or read in entire lifetime. A very well collected pieces of writing are divided in eleven categories where each of them offer us something new and something we have never read. It has poems, fiction and non fiction works by prominent Indian women. A must read for anyone who wants to explore indian women writers and works of regional writers whose works have been translated in this book. The editor has done a fabulous work in collating everything in one place. Before every theme the editor has written small notes on why and how the works fall in that theme. You might never get to read such books in near future.
February 21, 2018
Annie Zaidi is no newcomer to the world of literature and journalism. Yet, upto now apart from journalism, she has mostly devoted herself to creative writing be it novel, short story, poetry or Drama. To have taken upon herself, the task of editing an anthology of women writers, across the languages of the sub-continent and spanning 2000 years, must have, not only been daunting but also a challenge that must have caused considerable anxiety. I am no authority to comment on her omissions or commissions, but the one thing that appears apparent is that she has gone through substantial labour of love, to order this selection.
Her introduction not only throws insights into the process of selection and omission as any such work should do, but also discusses the process of categorisation followed by the editor.
Annie’s comments in the introduction deserve attention :
While writing about early women writers she states "Only a few managed to document their lives".
About Ramabai Sarasvati’s “The High caste Hindu Women” she says “the work remains relevant even today,speaking as it does about infanticide, establishing clear links between marriage, dowry caste, religious scripture and violence perpetrated on little girls”.
She brings into focus the ridicule and obscenity that, Tamil poets Revathi and Salma and prominent historian Romila Thappar have had to face, as consequence.
I would, certainly recommend this book to all who have an abiding interest in literature, as this is a treasure trove, that gives useful insights into the past and also remains relevant and attached to the concerns of this age and times.
Her introduction not only throws insights into the process of selection and omission as any such work should do, but also discusses the process of categorisation followed by the editor.
Annie’s comments in the introduction deserve attention :
While writing about early women writers she states "Only a few managed to document their lives".
About Ramabai Sarasvati’s “The High caste Hindu Women” she says “the work remains relevant even today,speaking as it does about infanticide, establishing clear links between marriage, dowry caste, religious scripture and violence perpetrated on little girls”.
She brings into focus the ridicule and obscenity that, Tamil poets Revathi and Salma and prominent historian Romila Thappar have had to face, as consequence.
I would, certainly recommend this book to all who have an abiding interest in literature, as this is a treasure trove, that gives useful insights into the past and also remains relevant and attached to the concerns of this age and times.
January 11, 2019
Annie Zaidi has dabbled in many forms of the arts—a novella and some excellent short stories, movie scripts and memoirs, poetry and plays. Her latest attempt, though, is undoubtedly the most challenging and interesting of the lot. Zaidi has sought to include 2,000 years of Indian women’s writing into a single volume. This is quite a gargantuan task, and not only because India boasts a rich and assorted literary culture, which saw quite an explosion in the last millennium. The concept of ‘women’s writing’ is a much debated term, and there are many who even refuse to recognize it as a category, considering it a demeaning classification.
Zaidi is well aware of the extent of her endeavour. The very first sentence of her lucid introduction to the collection admits that the task is “daunting” and that she dealt with a “severe space constraint”. She emphasizes that the collection does not, and cannot, document all literary contributions by all Indian women, making it clear that it is mostly a subjective discretion. Rather than an all-inclusive volume, this is more a tribute to the sisterhood that continued writing steadfastly and was rarely given space in major literary collections.
The collection is divided into 11 sections and includes over a hundred pieces, which makes them seem like tiny helpings of desserts, or perhaps miniscule entrees served frugally. They whet the appetite, and will definitely make readers yearn for more. One instance is the sensuous description of a female character in the Telegu version of the Ramayanam by Molla. The short extract will have readers clamouring to read the entire volume. It is impossible to include such detail in a collection like this, of course. But at least now, we have beautiful fragments to hold on to, to savour, to begin our search and research from the recesses that the editor has painstakingly resurrected.
To aid our exploration, Zaidi has also produced an index on the writers and translators, with additional notes. Even more helpful are the editor’s outlines at the beginning of each section, which offer a glimpse of the treasures that are to follow. The best among them is the introduction to the collection itself, a nuanced and thoughtful piece that provides answers to most of the queries and concerns that the anthology might produce.
The literary pieces are so varied in their genres and styles that the entire volume is likely to appeal to everyone—there is a poem, story, essay, and excerpt for all of us. And by the same logic, it is highly probable that readers will choose only the slices that they have a penchant for, and tune out the rest. That is always a danger in a selection as wide-ranging as this. A single dose of it can be tedious.
Also, not all the creations are necessarily good choices. A majority of them are brilliantly crafted, but an alarming number are quite lackluster, and seem to have been chosen to justify the segments they are placed under, or perhaps because they represent their age, which is quite understandable, but which also takes away from the pleasure of reading. Some excerpts also seem inadequate and abrupt, again, quite understandable, but dissatisfying all the same. Then there are, as always, the limitations of translations—while many of them are beautifully rendered, some will make readers want to get their hands on the original copies instead, and seek the meanings obviously lost in translation.
The most poignant are the autobiographies, memoirs and personal pieces that chronicle the lives and times of the authors. These, more than the other forms, present true tales of longing, disenchantment, delusion and rebellion. They tell us what it meant to be a woman 20 or 50 or 100 years ago. They teach us to be grateful for authors like Rassundari Devi and her burning desire to read and write, which paved the way for millions of others later on. The incident where she hides a page of manuscript and memorises it over and over again to learn the alphabet is especially powerful.
In works like this, the power of words shines through—how writers before us have revolted through letters to create space for daughters and granddaughters to write and create, to express and show, to simply live the way their heart longs to. It is a tribute to the struggles of our sisterhood, and homage to our foremothers. The themes, which begin with the softness of spiritual and secular love, build up to a crescendo of identity, battle and journey before aptly culminating at ‘ends’.
It is interesting to note the subjects women have chosen, the way they have perceived their surroundings and the manner in which they have etched their characters, especially those who are female. The age they write in has little to do with it: some female writers are inherently bold and curious; they experiment and express in ways that writers these days wouldn’t dare to. There are lucid accounts of domesticity, such as Mamta Kalia’s After Eight Years of Marriage, and then there is Gagan Gill’s Child, Go Home, speaking eloquently and elegantly of all that comprises child birth. In a few pages, Nilanjana Roy humorously talks about how her vegetarianism evolved, while Mallika Sengupta, in While Teaching my Son History encompasses things women have always wanted to say.
The editor has confessed to leaving out some popular writing because she was partial to Indian writing in Indian soil. This means that some canons have been kept out of the collection, but it is praiseworthy that the author knows her boundaries and has attempted no more, thus keeping the assemblage under her control. One way this rich trajectory can be bettered in its following editions would be to adopt a relative consistency in the notes on the authors. The notes, while largely satisfactory, are sometimes erratic—not even listing the major works of the authors—so that it is difficult to ascertain at a glance whether a work is memoir, story, novel or essay, such as Rajalakshmi’s The Apology.
The collection might be a disappointment to rigorous researchers who are used to a methodical chronicle of events. The anthology follows no linear pattern, there is no clean segmentation of dates and authors, and there is not much explanation provided for any snippet.
There is such an overlapping of times, themes, styles and attitudes that it is difficult to draw a single pattern out of them. To researchers, it might seem like a textbook with a random sampling of writings. But readers looking to enrich their understanding of Indian women’s writing over the ages, their historicity, challenges, triumphs and perseverance will be delighted with the collection.
This brave attempt will make for essential reading for enthusiastic bibliophiles, though maybe not for stern academics.
Zaidi is well aware of the extent of her endeavour. The very first sentence of her lucid introduction to the collection admits that the task is “daunting” and that she dealt with a “severe space constraint”. She emphasizes that the collection does not, and cannot, document all literary contributions by all Indian women, making it clear that it is mostly a subjective discretion. Rather than an all-inclusive volume, this is more a tribute to the sisterhood that continued writing steadfastly and was rarely given space in major literary collections.
The collection is divided into 11 sections and includes over a hundred pieces, which makes them seem like tiny helpings of desserts, or perhaps miniscule entrees served frugally. They whet the appetite, and will definitely make readers yearn for more. One instance is the sensuous description of a female character in the Telegu version of the Ramayanam by Molla. The short extract will have readers clamouring to read the entire volume. It is impossible to include such detail in a collection like this, of course. But at least now, we have beautiful fragments to hold on to, to savour, to begin our search and research from the recesses that the editor has painstakingly resurrected.
To aid our exploration, Zaidi has also produced an index on the writers and translators, with additional notes. Even more helpful are the editor’s outlines at the beginning of each section, which offer a glimpse of the treasures that are to follow. The best among them is the introduction to the collection itself, a nuanced and thoughtful piece that provides answers to most of the queries and concerns that the anthology might produce.
The literary pieces are so varied in their genres and styles that the entire volume is likely to appeal to everyone—there is a poem, story, essay, and excerpt for all of us. And by the same logic, it is highly probable that readers will choose only the slices that they have a penchant for, and tune out the rest. That is always a danger in a selection as wide-ranging as this. A single dose of it can be tedious.
Also, not all the creations are necessarily good choices. A majority of them are brilliantly crafted, but an alarming number are quite lackluster, and seem to have been chosen to justify the segments they are placed under, or perhaps because they represent their age, which is quite understandable, but which also takes away from the pleasure of reading. Some excerpts also seem inadequate and abrupt, again, quite understandable, but dissatisfying all the same. Then there are, as always, the limitations of translations—while many of them are beautifully rendered, some will make readers want to get their hands on the original copies instead, and seek the meanings obviously lost in translation.
The most poignant are the autobiographies, memoirs and personal pieces that chronicle the lives and times of the authors. These, more than the other forms, present true tales of longing, disenchantment, delusion and rebellion. They tell us what it meant to be a woman 20 or 50 or 100 years ago. They teach us to be grateful for authors like Rassundari Devi and her burning desire to read and write, which paved the way for millions of others later on. The incident where she hides a page of manuscript and memorises it over and over again to learn the alphabet is especially powerful.
In works like this, the power of words shines through—how writers before us have revolted through letters to create space for daughters and granddaughters to write and create, to express and show, to simply live the way their heart longs to. It is a tribute to the struggles of our sisterhood, and homage to our foremothers. The themes, which begin with the softness of spiritual and secular love, build up to a crescendo of identity, battle and journey before aptly culminating at ‘ends’.
It is interesting to note the subjects women have chosen, the way they have perceived their surroundings and the manner in which they have etched their characters, especially those who are female. The age they write in has little to do with it: some female writers are inherently bold and curious; they experiment and express in ways that writers these days wouldn’t dare to. There are lucid accounts of domesticity, such as Mamta Kalia’s After Eight Years of Marriage, and then there is Gagan Gill’s Child, Go Home, speaking eloquently and elegantly of all that comprises child birth. In a few pages, Nilanjana Roy humorously talks about how her vegetarianism evolved, while Mallika Sengupta, in While Teaching my Son History encompasses things women have always wanted to say.
The editor has confessed to leaving out some popular writing because she was partial to Indian writing in Indian soil. This means that some canons have been kept out of the collection, but it is praiseworthy that the author knows her boundaries and has attempted no more, thus keeping the assemblage under her control. One way this rich trajectory can be bettered in its following editions would be to adopt a relative consistency in the notes on the authors. The notes, while largely satisfactory, are sometimes erratic—not even listing the major works of the authors—so that it is difficult to ascertain at a glance whether a work is memoir, story, novel or essay, such as Rajalakshmi’s The Apology.
The collection might be a disappointment to rigorous researchers who are used to a methodical chronicle of events. The anthology follows no linear pattern, there is no clean segmentation of dates and authors, and there is not much explanation provided for any snippet.
There is such an overlapping of times, themes, styles and attitudes that it is difficult to draw a single pattern out of them. To researchers, it might seem like a textbook with a random sampling of writings. But readers looking to enrich their understanding of Indian women’s writing over the ages, their historicity, challenges, triumphs and perseverance will be delighted with the collection.
This brave attempt will make for essential reading for enthusiastic bibliophiles, though maybe not for stern academics.
June 26, 2015
Hard to inference the basis of certain stories.
August 11, 2018
"Unbound" is an anthology of 2000 years of Indian women's writing which has been compiled by Annie Zaidi. It was a wonderful read and it introduced me to writings by women like the Princess Zeb-Un-Nisa, the eldest daughter of Aurangzeb. Truly, a one of its kind book.
The book is divided into categories based on the different aspects of life like spiritual love, secular love, marriage, identity, work, food, and contains poems, essays, verses, short stories, etc. from different periods of time.
What i most liked about this book is that it doesn't confine itself to the works written in the English language, but also contains works translated into English from different regional languages of India.
The book is divided into categories based on the different aspects of life like spiritual love, secular love, marriage, identity, work, food, and contains poems, essays, verses, short stories, etc. from different periods of time.
What i most liked about this book is that it doesn't confine itself to the works written in the English language, but also contains works translated into English from different regional languages of India.
December 28, 2019
I wanted to like this more than I did and perhaps the greatest failing was in my own expectations as a reader.
A fascinating collection of writing of authors who l had not previously read. Each chapter has a useful introduction.
But, dipping in and out of writers’ and translators’ styles, excerpts from longer works and the vast array of time and geographical contexts meant that no sooner did I find the narrative voice in my mind and a story that captured me, it was discarded.
It will be a useful jumping off point in reading fuller works.
A fascinating collection of writing of authors who l had not previously read. Each chapter has a useful introduction.
But, dipping in and out of writers’ and translators’ styles, excerpts from longer works and the vast array of time and geographical contexts meant that no sooner did I find the narrative voice in my mind and a story that captured me, it was discarded.
It will be a useful jumping off point in reading fuller works.
July 18, 2015
Annie Zaidi has done an excellent job in putting this together. Hope she does another volume.
January 3, 2025
As a 'modern' woman disseminating the idea of equality of the sexes, I had recently started wondering if we must continue to compartmentalize writers who are women as 'women writers', according to them a significant but almost sequestered space in the literary canon. But as I traversed through the familiarly complex history of women's writing in India, I was once again reminded of the need for such bracketing. Interestingly one finds an unmistakable streak of familiarity between women across ages. It's as though there exists, beyond the dimensions of space and time, an ocean of shared suffering that 'nourishes' every female soul. Female writers bring to their writing the ineluctable truth of their body and mind, providing space to a trauma that is at once singular and collective. I find that in extension to this primitive purpose, such writing often illuminates the path towards a more optimistic future, shaped by historic accomplishments.
With help from some of the best, Zaidi aids you in coming to terms with the inherited pain and presents the possibility of a brighter future.
With help from some of the best, Zaidi aids you in coming to terms with the inherited pain and presents the possibility of a brighter future.
May 5, 2021
I had bought this book quite tempestuously, but it turned out to be a little disappointing. The book covers each and every aspect of a woman but it was a collection of only extracts. It is basically an anthology of all the works. Then there were spiritual and mythological parts, which I personally do not like which is why I skipped the whole section. Nevertheless, there were many stories and poems by various renowned authors. This book certainly recommendes you many other books to read.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews