Aparajita is a tenacious go-getter. Her name means unconquerable in Sanskrit, and she lives up to its meaning. Just like any other ambitious girl, she desires to fulfil her dreams and become an independent individual. Far and wide, the shadow of her melancholy past chases her passage. The fact that her widowed mother is a former sex worker irks the community. Nonetheless, she is not ashamed to reveal her mother’s past. Will she lose hope, or will she defy an enigma that is centuries-old? Will she ever conquer the hearts of a prestige-obsessed community? See the world through Aparajita’s prism in a tale stirred by some real life events.

BWWM Historical Romance After King Eric makes it illegal for the poor to have access to medical treatment, his sister, Princess Lelaina AKA Laney vows to right the wrongs he’s bestowed on the people. Unbeknownst to her brother, Laney begins helping a pastor by funding an underground medical facility for the needy. Posing as a peasant to deliver money to the pastor, Laney is captured by an old man with lewd intentions and is saved by Alistair, a thief who recently robbed her in the forest. Though things are prickly between them at first, Alistair and Laney’s curiosity for one another turns into a voracious attraction and soon both are willing to give up everything for true love. Unfortunately, Alistair has no idea he’s fallen in love with a princess and Laney must choose between telling him the truth and losing him or risking Alistair’s life at the hands of the king. Search Terms: bwwm romance, historical romance, interracial romance, african-american romance, fairy tale romance, medieval romance

From Comfort Woman: “We began the day with breakfast, after which we swept and cleaned our rooms. Then we went to the bathroom downstairs to wash the only dress we had and to bathe. The bathroom did not even have a door, so the soldiers watched us. We were all naked, and they laughed at us, especially me and the other young girl who did not have any pubic hair. “At two, the soldiers came. My work began, and I lay down as one by one the soldiers raped me. Every day, anywhere from twelve to over twenty soldiers assaulted me. There were times when there were as many as thirty; they came to the garrison in truckloads.” “I lay on the bed with my knees up and my feet on the mat, as if I were giving birth. Whenever the soldiers did not feel satisfied, they vented their anger on me. Every day, there were incidents of violence and humiliation. When the soldiers raped me, I felt like a pig. Sometimes they tied up my right leg with a waist band or a belt and hung it on a nail in the wall as they violated me. “I shook all over. I felt my blood turn white. I heard that there was a group called the Task Force on Filipino Comfort Women looking for women like me. I could not forget the words that blared out of the radio that day: 'Don't be ashamed, being a sex slave is not your fault. It is the responsibility of the Japanese Imperial Army. Stand up and fight for your rights.'” In April 1943, fifteen-year-old Maria Rosa Henson was taken by Japanese soldiers occupying the Philippines and forced into prostitution as a “comfort woman.” In this simply told yet powerfully moving autobiography, Rosa recalls her childhood as the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy landowner, her work for Huk guerrillas, her wartime ordeal, and her marriage to a rebel leader who left her to raise their children alone. Her triumph against all odds is embodied by her decision to go public with the secret she had held close for fifty years. Now in a second edition with a new introduction and foreword that bring the ongoing controversy over the comfort women to the present, this powerful memoir will be essential reading for all those concerned with violence against women.

AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN eBOOK! A New York Times Notable Book On the eve of his ninetieth birthday a bachelor decides to give himself a wild night of love with a virgin. As is his habit–he has purchased hundreds of women–he asks a madam for her assistance. The fourteen-year-old girl who is procured for him is enchanting, but exhausted as she is from caring for siblings and her job sewing buttons, she can do little but sleep. Yet with this sleeping beauty at his side, it is he who awakens to a romance he has never known. Tender, knowing, and slyly comic, Memories of My Melancholy Whores is an exquisite addition to the master’s work.

Women in the Ancient Near East offers a lucid account of the daily life of women in Mesopotamia from the third millennium BCE until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The book systematically presents the lives of women emerging from the available cuneiform material and discusses modern scholarly opinion. Stol’s book is the first full-scale treatment of the history of women in the Ancient Near East.

Miss Bangkok is a vivid, powerful and moving memoir of a life spent in prostitution in Thailand. Poor and uneducated, Bua Boonmee escaped an abusive marriage only to end up in the go-go bars of Patpong. There, in the notorious red-light district of Bangkok, she succumbed to prostitution in an effort to support her family. Bua’s story is one of resilience and courage in the face of abuse and poverty. Her confessions will make you laugh and cry, cringe and applaud. She will change your perception of prostitution forever.

While its actors made their entrace down the Flower Way over three hundred years ago, little of kabuki's repertory has been available to English readers. Not only are adequate translations difficult to produce, but also because the spoken parts of the drama constitute but a portion of that grand spectacle, English renderings often have an elliptical quality.These five plays, however, were translated from tapes made by James Brandon at actual performances, imparting to them an unusual immediacy. The superb translations are further enhanced by detailed commentary and stage directions that reflect music and sound effects as well as positions of actors on stage and their stylized gestures and posturing, all of which are such a vital part of a live performance. A concise introduction includes the history of kabuki, its religious background and ties with prostitution, its themes and playwriting systems, and its performance conventions, actors, music, and dance. Appendixes provide a fascinating focus on various sound effects and music cues in performance. More than one hundred production photographs vividly convey the action and emotion of one of the world's greatest stage arts. First published in 1975, this volume remains a classic.A reprint to the 1975 edition. Accepted into the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, Japanese Series.