Domestic Fiction PDF EPUB

Veiled Women

First published: 1913
Pages: 196

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About this book

Barakah is an Englishwoman who marries into a wealthy Cairo household and, to the astonishment of her own countrymen, embraces the secluded, veiled life of the harem rather than rejecting it. Through her eyes Marmaduke Pickthall opens the inner world of Egyptian women, with its rivalries, friendships, marriages, and small freedoms, treating it not as an object of pity but as a settled way of life with its own logic and dignity. Published in 1913 by an English author who would later convert to Islam, the novel pushes back against easy Western assumptions about the East and about the women behind the veil. It is a patient, sympathetic study of belonging, faith, and the slow remaking of one woman's sense of who she is. Free to read as a PDF and EPUB.

About the author

Marmaduke Pickthall

Marmaduke Pickthall (1875-1936) was an English writer who spent much of his youth in the Near East and embraced Islam in 1917. His novels of Arab and Egyptian life were praised for their intimacy and sympathy, and his English rendering of the Quran remains in print today.