Ismat Chughtai

Ismat Chughtai (1911–1991) wrote Urdu novels and short stories and also worked as a filmmaker. From the 1930s she wrote about female sexuality, middle-class gentility and class conflict, often from a Marxist perspective, in a plain style of literary realism. Her stories in The Quilt and Other Stories and her novel Heart Breaks Free sit alongside the essays of My Friend, My Enemy, and in 1976 she was awarded India's Padma Shri.