‘Farhat Hasan must be commended for his evocative, nuanced, and multifaceted explorations of women's Urdu and Persian verses – women from public, secluded, royal, and ordinary walks of life – as compiled in a couple of nineteenth century compendia, the tazkirat-i-zanāna. These compositions come mediated through male authors and prefaced with biographical sketches that direct and constrict meaning-making. Hasan displays his masterly historian's skills in unpacking layered striations of words, performances, textures, and gestures – the sensoria through which we may grasp their variegated fields of significations. By facilitating access to this as yet “veiled” literary archive, Hasan opens up “subjugated knowledge” to assert its insistent and salient presence in shaping literary and cultural praxis in the richly varied world of Persianate Hindustan. Voices in Verses tells of the deep and diverse histories of cultural inheritances embedded in South Asian ethos before the complicities and complexities of colonial and national confinements. This volume is a triumph of gendered reading that enriches the discipline of South Asian history.' Anshu Malhotra, University of California