About the Book
In an unnamed Middle Eastern country, government leaders maintain a stranglehold over women’s lives and freedoms. But in a neglected southern province, a secret female resistance movement has been forming for years. Now, the Hamiyat are preparing for battle, as they plan a daring attack on the perpetrators of the central regime.
Bina Shah’s widely acclaimed feminist dystopia Before She Sleeps described a futuristic dystopian world where technology and tyranny rob women of their freedom and reproductive rights. The Monsoon War is the story of three courageous women — a Wife, a Fighter and a Commander — and the ambitious gambit they enact in order to free their daughters from the regime’s grasp on their lives.
Praise for Before She Sleeps
Female-centered #Dystopia from #Pakistan: Before She Sleeps, Bina Shah. Fascinating new angle on ‘emotional work’!
―Margaret Atwood on Twitter
A haunting, dystopian thriller… Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale won’t want to miss this one.
―Publishers Weekly, starred review
An overdue enlargement of the cultural conversation that [The Handmaid’s Tale] continues to provoke.
―Kirkus Reviews
Charged and thrilling…exquisite…Shah develops her multiple characters beautifully…a thoughtful novel that will stick with me for a very long time.
―Los Angeles Times
Before She Sleeps stands on its own as a novel that will have readers contemplating rebellion and revolt, sex and power, and the many ways women’s bodies are sacrificed for the good of society.
―Booklist
About the Author
Bina Shah is a writer of English fiction and a journalist. She is the author of five novels and two collections of short stories, including Slum Child, which was a best seller in Italy. She was a regular contributor to the International New York Times from 2015-2018, and she is a provocative and bold commentator for the international press on Pakistan’s society, culture, and women’s rights. Her most recent novel, Before She Sleeps, originally published by Delphinium in 2018, has been published in Germany, Turkey and India. She is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and an alum of the International Writers Program at the University of Iowa. In 2021, she was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government.