Останься, дочь

YASMIN AZAD

STAY,  
DAUGHTER

MODERN PROSE

УДК 372.8
ББК  81.2 Англ–93 
А35

ISBN 978-5-9925-1577-0

Азад, Ясмин.

А35        Останься, дочь : книга для чтения на английском 
языке. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2022. — 256 с.— 
(Modern prose). 

ISBN 978-5-9925-1577-0.

YASMIN AZAD

STAY, DAUGHTER

© Ясмин Азад, 2022
© КАРО, 2022 
Все права защищены

Роман Ясмин Азад «Останься, дочь» был объявлен 
одной из лучших книг 2020 года. Книга во многом автобиографична ― автор с юмором и с любовью, иногда с 
грустью описывает свое детство и юность. Яркость детских переживаний сплетаются с красочным описанием 
города-форта на берегу Индийского океана. Динамичная и светлая, как теплый летний день, и очень личная 
история Азад поражает своей оригинальностью. В душе 
девочки из мусульманской общины искренняя любовь к 
своим родным органично сочетается с волнующими надеждами на счастье и свободу.
Неадаптированный текст романа на языке оригинала печатается без сокращений.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ–93

If you want to understand today,  
you have to search yesterday

Pearl Buck

GLOSSARY OF RELATIONSHIPS

Wappah — Father

Umma — Mother

Wappumma — father’s mother
Marmee — my father’s only sister. Marmee is 
the Tamil word for aunt.

Marma — my aunt Marmee’s husband. Marma is the 
Tamil world for uncle.

Asiyatha — father’s cousin — the adopted daughter 
of his mother’s only brother.
Rohani Cassim — great-grandfather. My mother’s 
father’s father.

Thalha Cassim — eldest daughter of Rohani Cassim. 
Being the sister of my mother’s father, she was 
my grand-aunt.
Kaneema Marmee — Thalha Cassim’s eldest 
daughter. My mother’s first cousin.

Fathuma Aunty — one of Thalha Cassim’s younger 
daughters, sister to Kaneema Marmee.

Zain Marma — one of my mother’s maternal uncles. 
Of all my grandmother’s many siblings, my 
mother was closest to him.
Zain Marmee — Zain Marma’s wife whom we 
affectionately called by her husband’s name.
Maraliya, Hidaya and Nabeesa, my father’s 
nieces — his only sister’s daughters.
Mackiya Thatha — my mother’s second cousin. 
Thatha is an honorific meaning “elder sister.”
Rameesa Marmee — the daughter of one of my 
father’s half-brothers. Having married one of 
my mother’s younger brothers, she was both 
my cousin and aunt by marriage.
Shinnamatha — one of several poor women who 
made a living in the Galle Fort by cooking food 
and helping out in the better off families.

Kadija Marmee and Zubeida Marmee — two of my 
mother’s close relatives who regularly visited 
our home.
Penny — my childhood friend in the Galle Fort. 
A Christian of Dutch Burgher descent. Her 
mother and father were Aunty June and Uncle 
Quintus.

For my beloved sons Kalid, Siraj and Jehan
And for my nephews and nieces
Rashid, Ayesha, Naima, Laila and Amal

With much affection

PROLOGUE

And stay in your houses,
and do not display yourselves.

The Quran

We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way 
our grandmothers had, or our mothers. We went out 
a little more and veiled ourselves a little less.
Casting off the heavy black cloaks that had once 
shrouded females from head to toe, we covered 
ourselves, instead, in flimsy veils. Draped lightly 
around our heads, the silks and voiles fell casually 
from our shoulders, and in the minutes it took for us 
to get from front door to car, a stranger walking on the 
road could make out the features of our young faces, 
the curves of slender waists and hips. Sometimes, 
such a stranger fixed his eyes on us. And sometimes 
we looked back. Mothers drew our veils closer and 
hurried us away; you shouldn’t allow yourselves to 
be seen like that, they told us.
Like girls from infidel families, we went to school, 
and stayed there even after we had become “big.” And 

still more like them, but so unlike our mothers, some 
of us longed for more learning and dreamed about 
leaving home to get it. The elders shook their heads 
and cautioned: too much education could ruin a girl’s 
future.
The world outside was pressing in on us, and 
when I turned twelve, Wappah, thought it time to 
tell me a story. Many years ago, my father reported, 
when our country, the island of Ceylon, was still a 
British colony, an Englishman—perhaps the Governor 
himself—had invited a Muslim statesman to dinner. 
“Bring your wife too,” the important official said. 
“I have never met her.”
“Aaah,” came the reply. “That is not possible. She 
is in purdah and cannot be seen by men outside the 
family. But,” the Muslim man continued, as he pulled 
out a rose from a nearby vase, “look at this. It would 
be just like looking at her.”
My father beamed and nodded as he ended his 
story. I looked back and said nothing.
If we felt the stirring of wishes unknown to our 
mothers and grandmothers, we didn’t tell them. They 
would have been shocked, like Wappah, who had only 
known women like flowers.