Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein

Sultana's Dream: And Selections from the Secluded Ones Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein Reprint edition

Sultana?s Dream, first published in 1905 in a Madras English newspaper, is a witty feminist utopia?a tale of reverse purdah that posits a world in which men are confined indoors and women have taken over the public sphere, ending a war nonviolently and restoring health and beauty to the world.

"The Secluded Ones" is a selection of short sketches, first published in Bengali newspapers, illuminating the cruel and comic realities of life in purdah.

Suggested for course use in:
History
Indian Literature
South Asian Studies
Utopian Fiction
Women?s Studies

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880 - 1932) was a Bengali Muslim writer and feminist activist who founded the first Muslim girls? school in Calcutta in 1911.