The best memoirs by Indian women

The best memoirs by Indian women start with three: Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jiban, widely called the first full-length autobiography in Bengali; Amrita Pritam’s The Revenue Stamp, a poet’s life through Partition; and Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life, three generations of Dalit women. Nine of the twelve below first appeared in a language other than English.

That last fact is why this list exists. Most of the women here wrote in their first language, and someone else carried the book into English. For each one I name the language, the translator, who the book suits, and what it does well.

Why so many of these were written in an Indian language

Nine of the best memoirs by Indian women on this list first appeared in Bengali, Malayalam, Punjabi, Urdu, Marathi, Tamil, Hindi or Italian, and only later in English.

That matters for two reasons. A life told in the language it was lived in keeps its own rhythm: the way a mother is addressed, the word for a kitchen, the jokes that don’t survive a dictionary. And a good translator decides how much of that reaches you. So in each entry below, the translator is named. They are half the reason you can read these books at all.

The best memoirs by Indian women, one by one

1. Amar Jiban (My Life)

Rassundari Devi (Bengali, 19th century; in English in Tanika Sarkar’s Words to Win, Zubaan)

A village wife in East Bengal, married as a child, mother of eleven, writes her own life.

Why read it: She taught herself to read in secret, at a time when reading was taboo for women of her class. The book is widely described as the first full-length autobiography in Bengali. Tanika Sarkar’s edition sets the translated text beside a study of how and why it was written.

Who it’s for: anyone who thinks an ordinary woman’s life at home isn’t worth a book. This one has lasted about 150 years.

2. My Story (Ente Katha)

Kamala Das (Malayalam serial 1972, book 1973; her own English version, Sterling, 1976)

Childhood in Kerala, Calcutta, an unhappy marriage, desire, and becoming a writer.

Why read it: It first ran as a magazine serial, and relatives pressed for it to be stopped. Das wrote the English version herself. She later said that a good deal of it was invented, which makes it a useful book for thinking about where memoir ends.

Who it’s for: readers who want a woman’s inner life written without apology.

3. The Revenue Stamp (Rasidi Ticket)

Amrita Pritam (Punjabi, 1976; translated by Krishna Gorowara)

The Punjabi poet’s life, in short episodes: Gujranwala and Lahore, the move to Delhi at Partition in 1947 while pregnant, an early marriage, her love for the poet Sahir Ludhianvi, and her decades with the artist Imroz.

Why read it: It is short, and it moves the way memory does, in pieces. The Partition pages are written from inside that journey, by a woman leaving Lahore pregnant.

Who it’s for: Punjabi families, readers interested in Partition, and anyone who likes poets’ lives.

4. A Life in Words (Kaghazi Hai Pairahan)

Ismat Chughtai (Urdu, 1979–80; translated by M. Asaduddin, Penguin India, 2012)

Growing up in a large Muslim family, fighting to be educated, and becoming one of Urdu’s best-known writers.

Why read it: She wrote it in fragments, out of order, between household interruptions, and left the sequence to her editor. You can feel that, and it suits the material. It is also notable for what she leaves out, her marriage included.

Who it’s for: readers who like literary lives and family chaos.

5. The Prisons We Broke (Jina Amucha)

Baby Kamble (Marathi, 1986; translated by Maya Pandit, Orient Longman, 2008)

Life in the Mahar community of Maharashtra before and after Ambedkar.

Why read it: It is widely regarded as the first autobiography by a Dalit woman in Marathi. It records caste, hunger and violence, and also the festivals, rituals and humour of a whole community. It first ran as a serial in Stree magazine.

Who it’s for: readers who want caste history told from inside.

6. The Weave of My Life (Aaydan)

Urmila Pawar (Marathi; translated by Maya Pandit, Stree, 2008, and Columbia University Press, 2009)

Three generations of Dalit women from the Konkan coast, a move to Mumbai, and a life in the Dalit literary movement.

Why read it: The title comes from her mother’s bamboo weaving, and the book is built the same way, strand by strand across generations. Pawar later turned down the Laxmibai Tilak award for it, because the ceremony was to open with a prayer to Saraswati. Her mother is at the centre of it.

Who it’s for: readers interested in family history, activism and Mumbai.

7. Karukku

Bama (Tamil, 1992; translated by Lakshmi Holmström, 2000)

A Dalit Christian woman in Tamil Nadu, caste inside the church and the convent, and the decision to leave.

Why read it: It was first published in Tamil in 1992. Holmström’s translation won the Crossword Book Award for Indian-language translation in 2000, and the book is now taught at universities.

Who it’s for: readers interested in faith, caste and the South.

8. A Life Apart (Anya se Ananya)

Prabha Khaitan (Hindi; translated by Ira Pande, Zubaan, 2013)

A Marwari woman in Kolkata stays single, builds her own businesses, and has a long relationship with a married man.

Why read it: It is a business memoir and a love story, and honest about both. Khaitan started her own companies, among them a women’s health business in 1966 and a leather export firm in 1976.

Who it’s for: readers interested in women in business and in unconventional lives.

9. Unbreakable

M.C. Mary Kom with Dina Serto (HarperCollins India, 2013)

From a family of farm labourers in Manipur to world boxing champion and Olympic bronze medallist.

Why read it: It covers growing up in a family of landless farm labourers, holding her own in a man’s sport, and going back to the ring after having children. Written with Dina Serto, it is a good example of an “as told to” book that keeps the speaker’s voice.

Who it’s for: sport readers, and teenagers who want a real role model.

10. In Other Words (In altre parole)

Jhumpa Lahiri (Italian; translated by Ann Goldstein, Knopf, 2016)

A Bengali-American novelist moves to Rome and decides to write only in Italian.

Why read it: It is a memoir about language itself. Lahiri grew up between Bengali at home and English outside, and here she chooses a third. Goldstein translated it, and the English edition prints the Italian alongside.

Who it’s for: anyone who lives between languages, as much of the Indian diaspora does. If that is your family, see memoirs for the diaspora.

11. My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future

Indra Nooyi (Portfolio, 2021)

From Chennai to twelve years as chief executive of PepsiCo.

Why read it: She is open about what the job cost her family, and she makes a direct case for changing how work is organised so that people can raise families. It won the Business Journey category at the 2022 Business Book Awards.

Who it’s for: business readers, and working parents.

12. Sach Kahun Toh

Neena Gupta (Penguin Ebury, 2021)

Karol Bagh, the National School of Drama, Bombay in the 1980s, raising her daughter alone, and a second career later in life.

Why read it: It is candid about her own choices and discreet about the people who hurt her: she leaves them unnamed.

Who it’s for: film readers, and anyone starting over.

All twelve at a glance

Book	Author	First written in	Translator	Best for
Amar Jiban	Rassundari Devi	Bengali	Tanika Sarkar (study and translation)	Where Indian women’s life-writing begins
My Story	Kamala Das	Malayalam	The author	A woman’s inner life
The Revenue Stamp	Amrita Pritam	Punjabi	Krishna Gorowara	Partition
A Life in Words	Ismat Chughtai	Urdu	M. Asaduddin	Literary lives
The Prisons We Broke	Baby Kamble	Marathi	Maya Pandit	Caste history from inside
The Weave of My Life	Urmila Pawar	Marathi	Maya Pandit	Mothers and daughters
Karukku	Bama	Tamil	Lakshmi Holmström	Faith and caste
A Life Apart	Prabha Khaitan	Hindi	Ira Pande	Women in business
Unbreakable	Mary Kom with Dina Serto	English	None	Sport
In Other Words	Jhumpa Lahiri	Italian	Ann Goldstein	Living between languages
My Life in Full	Indra Nooyi	English	None	Work and family
Sach Kahun Toh	Neena Gupta	English	None	Starting over

How I chose them

Every book here is a memoir or autobiography written by the woman herself, alone or with a named co-writer. I checked each title, author, translator, publisher and year against a publisher’s page, a library record or a published review.

I wanted range: the 19th century and this decade, a village and a boardroom, Manipur and Rome. I left out books by sitting politicians, and memoirs whose main subject is political controversy. I also left out biographies of women written by other people, which is why there is no Lata Mangeshkar here.

What these memoirs mean for your own mother’s story

Several of these books are by women nobody expected to write a book. Rassundari Devi was a housewife. Urmila Pawar’s mother wove baskets.

Your mother’s life may never be published. It is still worth getting down, in the language she tells it in. Start with 100 questions to ask your parents, in the order that gets them talking.

Questions people ask

What was the first autobiography by an Indian woman?

Rassundari Devi’s Amar Jiban, published in Bengali in the 19th century, is usually named as the first full-length autobiography in Bengali, and often as the first by an Indian woman.

Which memoirs by Dalit women should I read first?

Start with Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life (Marathi) and Bama’s Karukku (Tamil). Then read Baby Kamble’s The Prisons We Broke, widely regarded as the first autobiography by a Dalit woman in Marathi.

Are there good memoirs by Indian women in business?

Yes. Indra Nooyi’s My Life in Full covers PepsiCo and the cost to her family. Prabha Khaitan’s A Life Apart, translated from Hindi, is the story of a Kolkata woman who built her own businesses in the 1960s and 70s.

Can a memoir be written in Hindi or Punjabi and published in English?

Yes. Nine of the twelve on this list were written in another language first. Amrita Pritam wrote in Punjabi and Prabha Khaitan in Hindi, and translators brought both into English.

If you want someone else to do the asking and the writing, in whatever mix of English, Hindi and Punjabi your mother thinks in, that is the gift book.