Sultana falls asleep in her armchair and dreams of meeting a woman that she initially takes for her friend – Sister Sara. Both women take a stroll in a breathtaking place where everything’s different – men sit in a specially designated part of the house called zenana and women actively engage in social life, making the important decisions, receiving education and creating amazing innovations. Sister Sara rushes to explain: this place is named Ladyland. Sultana is astonished and keeps asking: where are the courts? Where is the police? In response, she hears that since men are off the streets, those institutions fell out of use.
Sultana’s Dream is a feminist utopia written in 1905 by Bengali activist, Rokeya Sahkawat Hossain. The story was first published in The Indian Ladies Magazine. Not only the content was surprising but also the language used by an author – at that time it was hard for women to learn English as it was believed it would present them with new (meaning: dangerous) ideas. 5 years after publishing of Sultana’s Dream, Hossain set up a school for women in Calcutta that operates up to this day.
This edition from our beloved Indian publisher Tara Books additionally includes beautiful illustrations by Durgi Bai from the Gond tribe.
