The dancing girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond Market in the shadow of a great mosque. The twenty-first century goes on outside the walls of this ancient quarter but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: Beloved by emperors and nawabs, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern-day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are gandi, "unclean," and Maha's daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.
Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of a Lahori dancing girl. With beautiful understatement, she turns a novelist's eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to a powerful Arab sheikh at the age of twelve; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the sheikh come calling once more.

The Dancing Girls of Lahore: Selling Love and Saving Dreams in Pakistan's Ancient Pleasure District

Biographies & Memoirs

Brown, Louise

Community & Culture

Harper

The Dancing Girls of Lahore: Selling Love and Saving Dreams in Pakistan's Pleasure District

Harper-perennial

The Vietnam War is unique in its profound influence upon the American consciousness. America's longest war was also the most important military conflict since the Second World War, and significantly, the first war to receive television coverage. War and Aftermath in Vietnam makes a distinctive contribution as the first study to examine the conflict from a Vietnamese as well as a Western point of view. T. Louise Brown provides a thorough examination of the cultural, political, and historical dimensions of the war. The book combines a broad understanding of the background to the conflict in Vietnamese and world history with detailed material on United States military tactics and the failure of pacification. Chapters cover topics as diverse and as central as the administrations of Johnson, Kennedy and Nixon; religion, culture, and society in North and South Vietnam; and the nature of the "People's Revolutionary War" in Vietnam. The book will be of interest to those studying politics, international studies, and history, and to the general reader.

War & Aftermath In Vietnam

History

Asia

Routledge

The Simplicity of Prayer

Self-Help

Motivational

Anointed Word Media Group

Eden Gardens

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Oakhill Publishing (CD)

Sex slaves: The trafficking of women in Asia

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Virago

The Asian sex trade is often assumed to cater predominantly to foreigners. SEX SLAVES turns that belief on its head to show that while western sex tourists have played a vital part in the growth of the industry, the primary customers of Asia's indentured sex workers and of its child prostitutes are overwhelmingly Asian men.
Here are the voices of some of the world's most silent and abused women - women who have been forced into prostitution by the men they trust. This is their story: about the journey from home to captivity; the horrors of 'seasoning' for prostitution; and the hidden life within the brothel.

Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Virago UK

At 11.47pm on July 25th 1978, Louise Brown was the first person ever to be born through science rather than as the result of two people having sex. The birth was hailed as a "miracle" by the world's media, making her instantly famous. For the first time Louise tells the story of her world changing birth and its impact on her life. The book contains many family photographs and letters which have never been published before. It was written by Louise with her long-term publicist Martin Powell of Empica PR.

Louise Brown: My Life As The World's First Test-Tube Baby

Powell, Martin

Leaders & Notable People

Bristol Books

"Denis Bell's stories are short only in length; in insight, vision, humor and style they have a farseeing distance and depth that will keep you wedded to the page, either laughing, marveling, or scratching your head."-- David L. Robbins, author, War of the Rats "A thought-provoking collection of flashes and longer stories: poignant, strange, humorous and humane. A Box of Dreams should be opened by all."-- Peter Blair and Ashley Chantler. Editors for Flash: The International Short: Short Story Magazine "In A Box of Dreams, nothing is as it seems. For the characters caught up in Denis Bell's intricately interconnected world of flash fictions, up is down. Black is white. Indeed, only one thing is certain: by the time you're done with A Box of Dreams, you'll find yourself looking over your shoulder... These stories are cool as hell.-- Andrew Geyer, Fiction Editor for Concho River Review, author, Lesser Mountains and Whispers in Dust and Bone "Denis Bell and flash fiction represent a marriage made in Heaven. The two dozen short works in his collection, A Box of Dreams, show him working at the top of his game. In each, the reader's mind is taken for a weird, wonderful walk that's by turns wryly humorous and darkly intriguing. Louise Brown's illustrations lend just the right atmosphere for an absorbing read." -- Paul Blaney, Writer in Residence, Rutgers University, author, The Anchoress Denis Bell's collection of short fiction A Box of Dreams, 2nd edition, centers itself in the tradition of Spoon River Anthology (minus the tombstones) and Winesburg, Ohio. A Box of Dreams is dark without a trace of cynicism: it invites empathy for even the least attractive of the characters; these protagonists commonly suffer from mangled memories, rightful guilt, and an inability to distinguish between delusion and reality, between past and present. The stories tease and tantalize: truth glimmers between the lines. Louise Freshman Brown's gorgeous images are haunting illuminations.-- Miriam N. Kotzin, author, Country Music, Spuyten Duyvil Press Each piece in Denis Bell's A Box of Dreams is a work of magic that moves steadily along, pulling you in, and not letting you go... The stories are by turns haunting, heartbreaking and funny, and they never fail to surprise... Blending the real with the surreal, these stories, more than anything else, get to the heart of our humanity, our vulnerabilities, and they do so in a way that represents the best in flash fiction.-- Dennis Pahl, Long Island University, Editor for Confrontation Magazine

A Box of Dreams

Bell, Denis

Short Stories & Anthologies

Luchador Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brown, Louise. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Brown, Louise