Book Launch “Empress” by Ruby Lal

 

Canadian Community Arts Initiative is pleased to present Ruby Lal for a book reading session, in collaboration with University of Toronto Mississauga. Her much acclaimed new book “Empress” is a biographical account of Empress Nur Jahan of India. The only woman ruler in the long dynasty of India’s Moghuls, Nur Jahan, the 20th wife of Emperor Jahangir and his co-ruler, was 34 and a widow when they married in 1611. She was, Lal writes, “a wise and just queen, a shrewd politician, and an expert markswoman”. She hunted and killed tigers and led men into battle. She is immortalised in a portrait loading a musket. Upon the death of the emperor in 1627 his son, Shah Jahan, wrested power from her and wrote her merits out of history (she had transgressed traditional rules against women being involved in “matters of government and sovereignty”). Lal’s intriguing biography, with its chronology of Nur’s relatively swift rise to power and even swifter descent, restores Nur Jahan to her full splendour. 

The event takes place on Friday 15th of February, 2019 at the Rotunda theatre at the UTM campus at 6 pm. Moderated by Luther Obrock,Associate Professor of History and Religious studies at UTM, where the author Ruby Lal uncovers the rich life and world of Nur Jahan, rescuing this dazzling figure from patriarchal clichés of romance and intrigue, and giving new insight into the lives of women and girls in the Mughal Empire.

In Empress, Nur finally receives her due in a deeply researched and evocative biography that awakens readers to a fascinating history

 

“Lal has done a service to readers interested in the Mughal period and the many forgotten or poorly remembered women of Indian history. She has helped shine a little light on an enigmatic character many think they know but few actually understand,” Vikas Bajaj writes in a review published in the New York Times

 

Canadian Community Arts Initiative:

Is a non for profit organization promoting art and culture in Canadian community since 2005. CCAI is well known for its TD Mosaic Festival, Rock the Coliseum Independent Music Festival and MISAFF film festival. The organization has earlier presented William Darlymple’s book launch at Agha Khan Museum in Toronto.

 Author Bio:

Ruby Lal:

Ruby Lal is an acclaimed historian of Mughal India. Her previous books are: Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005), which won much acclaim, including numerous reviews in major international magazines, such as The New York Review of Books, The Economic and Political Weekly, Revue Historique, and The Times Literary Supplement. Her second book, Coming of Age in Nineteenth Century India: The Girl-Child and the Art of Playfulness (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2013) was reviewed extensively in academic journals and magazines with wider intellectual concerns. Her short stories have appeared in Indian Literature and in The Little Magazine. She teaches at Emory University and divides her time between Atlanta and Delhi.StarBuzzOnline