The Untold Story of the Vagabond Princess Gul...

On this week's episode of the podcast, journalist and author Anand Gopal joins Faisal Al Yafai to discuss two decades of conflict from Afghanistan to Iran, how the stories told by the powerful ignore the people who live under them, and what a forgotten democratic experiment in Sy ...  Show more

Writer and anti-corruption expert Sarah Chayes and journalist Emran Feroz join Faisal Al Yafai on the podcast to discuss the Epstein files, global networks of kleptocracy from Washington to the remote valleys of Afghanistan, and what elites really get up to when they think we’re ...  Show more

Gulbadan Begum was meant to live a quiet life in a Mughal harem. Instead she set off on a daring pilgrimage to Islam's holy cities and, on her return, wrote an extraordinary account of her dynasty. In conversation with Spencer Mizen, Ruby Lal explores the life of a princess who t ...  Show more

In the British Library, there is a manuscript copy of the memoir of Princess Gulbadan, the only surviving female-authored memoir from the Mughal Empire. In it, Gulbadan tells her extraordinary story: from growing up in a multi-cultural society, via life in a walled harem, to ...

Traces of Enayat (Transit Books, 2023) is a work of creative nonfiction tracing the mysterious life and erasure of Egyptian literature’s tragic heroine. It begins in Cairo, 1963. Four years before her lone novel is finally published, the writer Enayat al-Zayyat takes her own life ...  Show more

In this episode of Cyrus Says, bestselling author Kavita Kané joins Cyrus to discuss her revolutionary approach to Indian mythology, where she highlights the lesser-known women who played pivotal roles. With eight bestselling novels, including Karna’s Wife (2013), Sita’s Sister ( ...  Show more