Sultana's Dream

by sakhawat hossain • 1905

Sultana's Dream by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein. The female narrator of Sultana's Dream wanders into a dream city that shuns war and violence. In this utopian world, women rule and men are content with their places in the kitchen. The queen of this kingdom explains how women won and kept their peace against men and their war-like ways. This edition of a feminist utopian classic is a conversation across time; Durga Bai, a contemporary tribal woman artist from Central India, brings her own vision to bear on a Muslim gentlewoman's radical tale. Rokheya Shekawat Hossein lived and wrote in colonial India. A strong advocate of women's rights within the Muslim community in eastern Inida, she wrote in Bengali and English on social reform, women's education and freedom. She wrote Sultana's Dream, her first piece oif writing in English, to prove to herself her competence in the language - the book went on to become a classic of feminist utopian fiction.