Dream Mirage

Since childhood the narrator has heard elderly Lucknowis talk about Umrao Jaan, the courtesan made famous by Mirza Hadi Ruswa's 1899 novel. He comes to suspect that the published book leaves part of her life out, and goes looking for other versions of her story, including a manuscript Ruswa is said to have withheld. His search takes him through the lanes, imambaras, tombs and gardens of old Lucknow and into its Muharram mourning gatherings, where neighbours, reciters and old families remember a vanished city. The narrator's own life runs alongside the inquiry, so that past and present keep meeting in the city's idiom, poetry and rituals.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

479 pages in the original

Set in

India

First published

2017 by Anis Ashfaq

ISBN

9798887330327 (Notion Press, India)