Originally written and published in Urdu by Muhammad Hadi Ruswa in 1899, the poignant tale of Umrao mirrored the lives of courtesans (tawaifs) in colonial India (The Times of India).

Academic research on Umrao Jaan (both novel and the character) led Krupa Shandilya, one of the translators of this novella to discover the existence of a sequel to Ruswa’s ‘Umrao Jan Ada‘; believed to be authored by the courtesan herself.