Published by the Pakistan Academy of Letters, this collection of short biographies is a veritable who’s who of Pakistan’s female literati, comprising names both well-known and relatively obscure. It serves as a useful introduction and guide to women authors over the past 70 years who have created, in both Urdu and English, significant works in various genres of writing — non-fiction (literary criticism, essays, autobiographies and biographies and travelogues), short stories, novels and poetry — in Pakistan.