The Bandit Queens: Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023

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Naqvi, Haidar (12 April 2023). "Another accused in 1981 Behmai massacre dies, only 2 men now face trial". Hindustan Times. Archived from the original on 25 April 2023 . Retrieved 7 May 2023.

The women were arguing. The loan officer was due to arrive in a few hours, and they were still missing two hundred rupees. Rather, Farah and her two hundred rupees were missing. The other four women of their loan group had convened, as they did every Tuesday, to aggregate their respective funds. Fernandes, Leela (1999). "Reading "India's Bandit Queen": A trans/national feminist perspective on the discrepancies of representation". Signs. 25 (1): 123–152. doi: 10.1086/495416. ISSN 0097-9740. JSTOR 3175617. S2CID 143129445. Archived from the original on 21 December 2022 . Retrieved 21 December 2022. a b c d e f g h i j k l Weaver, Mary Anne (1 November 1996). "India's Bandit Queen". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 17 December 2022 . Retrieved 20 December 2022. It could all be pretty heavy, but somehow Shroff manages to balance the overwhelming weight of patriarchy (domestic abuse is a regular subject) with humor and hilarity. There are antics, there are jokes, there is a lot of coarse language. I suspect some readers will find all of this unrealistic when applied to women of color from a developing region, but if you are finding yourself having those responses I would recommend you sit with that for a while.

Tripathi, Purnima S. (17 August 2001). "Troubled legacy". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 3 July 2023 . Retrieved 3 July 2023.

a b c Lawson, Alastair (25 July 2001). "Phoolan Devi: Champion of the poor". BBC News. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021 . Retrieved 18 December 2022. Geeta is believed to have killed her vanished husband – a rumour she hasn’t bothered trying to correct, because a reputation like that can keep a single woman safe in rural India. But when she’s approached for help in ridding another wife of her abusive drunk of a husband, her reluctant agreement sets in motion a chain of events that will change the lives of all the women in the village…. India and the village Geeta lives in are intrinsic to the narrative. Discuss the ways in which the setting functions as a character in the novel and how each of the other characters relates to it. The author infuses snark, wit, and humor into a devastating storyline about women wanting to escape their abusive marriages. Explore ways in which you use humor in your own life to deal with difficult situations. Do you find this method to be effective? Let us Know Something About It In Detail. The real-life Phoolan Devi was born in 1963 and was married when she was about 11. See Phoolan Devi for more detailsa b c d Szurlej, Tatiana (31 December 2018). "From heroic Durga to the next victim of an oppressive patriarchal Indian culture: Too many variants of Phoolan Devi's biography". Cracow Indological Studies. 20 (2): 257–280. doi: 10.12797/CIS.20.2018.02.12. S2CID 165523279. If you were in Geeta's position when she was first approached to help plot a murder, what would you have done? The author explained that she used this book to explore various elements present in Indian society: domestic abuse/gender/religious/castes ostracization, and patriarchy. The author is an attorney in California. With Geeta's dangerous reputation becoming a double-edged sword, she has to find a way to protect the life she's built—but even the best-laid plans of would-be widows tend to go awry. What happens next sets in motion a chain of events that will change everything, not just for Geeta, but for all the women in their village. a b c d Moxham, Roy (2010). "Chapter 6". Outlaw: India's Bandit Queen and me (Ebooked.). London: Rider. ISBN 978-1-84604-182-2.

It’s not often that my whole book club agrees on a book, but we did for this one: The Bandit Queens is a winner.Lahksmanan, Indira A. R. (13 August 1997). "Feminist Robin Hood faced with another Fight". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. p.3A. Archived from the original on 20 June 2023 . Retrieved 13 June 2023. In a small Indian village, Geeta has garnered a reputation as a “self-made widow” after her husband, Ramesh, disappeared five years ago. When a woman in her micro-loan group approaches her to help get rid of her husband, many unintended actions occur, including more women who want their husbands disposed of in a non-suspicious manner. The real-life Bandit Queen, Phoolan Devi, is Geeta’s inspiration for getting revenge on men who do women wrong.