In 1903, a young woman boarded a ship from India to Guiana, pregnant and traveling alone as a "coolie"—the British term for indentured laborers who replaced emancipated slaves on sugar plantations worldwide. Like so many women of her time, she vanished into colonial archives, her story lost to history.
Great-granddaughter Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on an extraordinary quest to reclaim her ancestor's story and shine light on the complex lives of some quarter million coolie women. Traversing three continents and poring through countless colonial documents, she excavates not just one narrative but an entire suppressed history.
These women faced extraordinary challenges—shunned by society, often in mortal danger, they were frequently runaways, widows, or outcasts who left husbands and families behind. They embarked on traumatic "middle passages" across oceans, only to confront lives of hard labor, dismal living conditions, and sexual exploitation in sugar plantations.
Coolie Woman is both a personal quest and historical exploration. It traces a double migration—from India to the West Indies in one century, then from Guyana to the United States in the next. Through individual stories, Bahadur examines themes of gender, power, peril, and opportunity that resonate across generations.
Shortlisted for the prestigious Orwell Prize, this book offers more than family history—it provides crucial insight into colonial labor systems, women's agency under oppression, and the lasting impacts of indentured servitude. The narrative transforms historical statistics into human faces and personal struggles, making visible those who were systematically marginalized and forgotten.
