The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan

About this book

A memoir of Karachi through the eyes of its women Rafia Zakarias Muslim-Indian family immigrated to Pakistan from Bombay in 1962 feeling the situation for Muslims in India was precarious and that Pakistan represented enormous promise And for some time it did Her family prospered and the city prospered But in the 1980s Pakistans military dictators began an Islamization campaign designed to legitimate their rule-a campaign that particularly affected women The political became personal for Zakarias family when her Aunt Aminas husband did the unthinkable and took a second wife a betrayal of kin and custom that shook the foundation of her family The Upstairs Wife dissects the complex strands of Pakistani history from the problematic legacies of colonialism to the beginnings of terrorist violence to increasing misogyny interweaving them with the arc of Aminas life to reveal the personal costs behind ever-more restrictive religious edicts and cultural conventions As Amina struggles to reconci