From my Substack:
Queen Zarqa: A Transgender’s Odyssey (Lightstone Publishers 2025) is an English translation from the Urdu of a novel by Hayat Roghaani. Roghaani originally wrote the novel in Pashto. It was then translated into Urdu by Gohar Rehman Naveed and subsequently into English by Shama Askari. It is noteworthy for being one of the few Urdu novels to deal with the subject of khawaja saras–transgender women (also referred to as hijras in India). 1
In her “Introduction” to the book, Zubaida Mustafa–a renowned Pakistani journalist who passed away earlier this year–describes how the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018 “grants [transgenders] the same rights as any other citizen of Pakistan. Recognizing their special needs the Act provides for separate transgender wards in hospitals. True as is the wont in this country many of the facilities promised under the law have yet to see the light of day, but activism, cajoling the authorities and other means could bear fruit” (20).
Mustafa goes on to describe attempts to roll back the protections granted by the 2018 act. She writes:
But what is more disturbing is the concerted drive by some bigoted and misogynist leaders of religious political parties to undo the gains the transgender persons have won. These parties have already got the Shariat Court to give a verdict adding conditionalities that offend the dignity of transgender persons. The Shariat Court wants transgender persons to appear before a medical board to have their gender determined. The government has mercifully appealed to the Supreme Court against this judgement. The final verdict is still awaited,and the Shariat Court’s ruling is held in abeyance until the Supreme Court rules on the matter (20).
Given the immense challenges faced by transgenders in Pakistan and the sensitivity of this subject, it is extremely commendable of Roghaani to take up this subject in his fiction. While the novel is not great literature by any means, it serves an important sociological function in sensitizing readers to this important subject. Continue reading Review–Queen Zarqa: A Transgender’s Odyssey by Hayat Roghaani