Event overview
We are pleased to welcome, Sadiya Ansari who will be discussing her book, "In Exile: an exploration of her grandmother's secret life and the experiences of partition."
In a deeply personal investigation, award-winning journalist Sadiya Ansari takes us across three continents and back a century as she seeks the truth behind a family secret. Why did her grandmother Tahira abandon her seven children to follow a man from Karachi to a tiny village in Punjab? And though she eventually left him, Tahira remained estranged from her children for nearly two decades. Who was she in those years when she was no longer a wife or mother? For Sadiya herself, uninterested in marriage and children, the question begets another: What space is available to women who defy cultural expectations?
Through her inquiry, Sadiya discovers what her daadi’s life was like during that separation and she confronts difficult historical truths: the pervasiveness of child marriage, how Partition made refugees of millions of families like hers, and how the national freedoms achieved in 1947 did not extend to women’s lives.
Sadiya will do a short reading from her book, outline how she undertook her research and the journey involving in getting the book published.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Mar 2026 | 2:00pm - 3:30pm |
Accessibility
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