Good Girls
In this richly unnerving tale about family secrets and expectations, two sisters are at lifelong odds with each other, their mother, and themselves--and as every hour becomes more twisted than the last, they are all pushed to their breaking point.
Lovely and Beauty know their place: at home, beneath the watchful eye of their mother. Life has never included friends, an education, or anything the sisters can call their own. Their comings and goings are supervised by Farida. Otherwise, they don't come and go at all.
That changes on Lovely's fortieth birthday. In a stroke of inexplicable fortune, Farida permits her eldest daughter to go to the Gausia Market alone, with no instructions but to abide by her curfew. For once on her own, Lovely is goaded by the voice in her head to push her mother's--and her own--boundaries.
New experiences and old memories abound as her family awaits her return. But with the taste of freedom so fresh on her tongue, Lovely is spurred on by her disembodied companion to hang on to her newfound independence. When home isn't a safe haven, Lovely must find somewhere else to turn.
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Leesa Gazi is a Bangladeshi British author, theater practitioner, award-winning filmmaker, and joint artistic director of the London-based arts organization Komola Collective. She has dedicated her career to presenting stories from women's perspectives. Multiple plays written and translated by Gazi toured nationally and internationally. She was the cowriter and performer of the play Birangona: Women of War, nominated for the Offies (UK), which she later developed into the documentary feature Rising Silence, which sheds light on the lives of sexual violence survivors in the aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Westland Books published Good Girls (previously titled Hellfire), an English translation of Gazi's critically acclaimed Bengali novel Rourob, translated by Shabnam Nadiya in 2020. She has written, performed, and created content for many prestigious venues and organizations, including Shakespeare's Globe, the BBC, TED Talks, Sadler's Wells, the Southbank Centre, and Akram Khan Company. Gazi has also written and directed several counterviolent extremism short films for a UK-based think tank.
Currently, Gazi is completing her debut fiction film, Barir Naam Shahana (A House Named Shahana), which won FBR Winner 2021--Feature at the NFDC Film Bazaar.
Praise for Good Girls
"Gazi aids her brisk plotting with flashbacks that emphasize the family's abusive dynamics..." --Publishers Weekly
"Written in lyrical prose, with nuanced characters, Gazi's first novel translated into English deftly unravels the complicated relationships between the sisters, their mother, and the secrets they've harbored." --Booklist
"Taut, unsettling, and at times wickedly funny, this sly novel will hold you in its thrall until the very last page." --Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring
