The alchemy of Shahzia Sikander's work commingles the age-old tradition of miniature painting with explicitly modern media, revealing the tensions and imbrications in the iconographies of West and East, of Islam, Hinduism, and Christianity, and of past and present. The lush, jewel-like pigments and remarkable draughtmanship of Sikander's pieces, as well as the fragile and provocative beauty of her tissue drawing installations, are exquisitely reproduced in this catalogue, which complements the 1999 exhibition of her work at the University of Chicago's Renaissance Society. The book features an insightful introductory essay, 'Translated Pleasures, ' by historian Faisal Devji, in which he compares Sikander's work to the poetic riddles of the ghaza tradition. Also featured is an interview conducted by eminent postcolonial scholar Homi Bhabha, which reveals Sikander's process of interweaving tradition and contemporaneity from the vantage of her personal history, and illuminates how the artist's hybrid aesthetic addresses issues of postcolonialism, gender, and history.