Rokeẏā (Begama)

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Widely regarded as Bengal's earliest and boldest feminist writer, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932) was a pioneering and creative educationist and social activist, and the school she founded in Kolkata, the Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls, still thrives. Sultana's Dream, written in English (1905), is a delightful satirical work set in Ladyland, where the men are in purdah and the women go out and work. An extraordinary novella with generous dashes of melodrama and romance, disasters and coincidences, Padmarag, written in Bengali (1924) and translated here for the first time, describes a female-founded and female-administered community set in contemporary Bengal, where women from diverse regions and ethnicities, with unhappy histories of patriarchal oppression, better their lot by concrete social action. Both Sultana's Dream and Padmarag discuss in playful, fascinating, and intelligent ways the question of women's education.

And Padmarag : Two Feminist Utopias

Sultana's Dream

Begum Rokheya Sakhawa Hossain

This title provides a retelling of a hundred year old feminist fable. It begins with the narrator falling into a slumber and waking to a world where women are learned and men are content with their place in the kitchen. A smiley queen explains how this world came to be, and how women won thier peace against men and their warlike ways.

Hanna Papanek

Tells the story of a feminist utopia and discusses the Muslim custom of purdah, the seclusion and segregation of women

Rokeẏā (Begama)

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