Neha Dixit on gender, the informal economy and the invisible work of women

There are many ways in which you could choose to approach Neha Dixit’s first book, The Many Lives of Syeda X: The story of an unknown Indian. First, it is obviously the story of Syeda, the X in her name marking her as an Everywoman migrant, one of 35,000 who stream into Delhi everyday looking for work.

Syeda is also Muslim, and while her preoccupation is survival, she lives in an India where religious identity has, post the 1990s, become increasingly important.