I loved Sultanas Dream. I struggled to finish Padmarag bc each chapter almost felt stand alone. I ended up reading 50% of it, but I did love it and felt that it was relaxing and meaningful. And surprisingly contemporary!

Sultana's Dream...a book I had heard about since kindergarden, but never actually happened to read. It is brilliant, and becomes increasingly more brilliant as you put it in context of 1905's Bengal, where the purdah system reigned and the subcontinent was still under the ruthless British rule. This science fiction has a reversed sex-roles dystopia (it seems quite utopi-c, though), solar energy, electric irrigation and transportation and quite a few other marvels. I think it should be made a required reading for schools in Bangladesh. Also, I just found a fanfic on it!

'We do not covet other people's land, we do not fight for a piece of diamond though it may be a thousand-fold brighter than the Koh-i-Noor, nor do we grudge a ruler his Peacock Throne. We dive deep into the ocean of knowledge and try to find out the precious gems, which nature has kept in store for us. We enjoy nature's gifts as much as we can.'

A really good short-story.

Sultana’s dream and Padmarag by Rokeya Sakhawait Hussain.

A book i ignored for years

A book i thought to be a sob story

A book that outlived my expectations

A book that was written in early 20th century

A book written by a self taught activist

A book with 2 novellas as its content

Has a satirical dream of ladyland

Men are in purdah and women running government

Again, it tells its a dream

A beautiful ambitious dream of

A woman in purdah,

Then has another story

Another feminist dream

Set in a place Tarini Bhavan

Not any less than ladyland

An amazing feminist utopia

So appealing that i forgot it's a fiction

Enters a damsel in distress

Who takes multiple pseudonyms

Has all the world problems

then she’s everything but helpless

She's got help

There’s more then there’s nothing much

Its all how you and i understand

Again, trust me it's not a sob story of women

It is a witty sarcastic satire that owns up to it

Pick up this book right away

It's a short one go kinda book

You wont regret picking it,

If you’re still reading,

Don't come at me for this mere attempt

I don't know what to call this

Lets just say i changed format for this book

Tell me what would you call

This amateur format of mine

And rescue me

The whirlpool of my overthinking.

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a Bengali writer, educationist, social activist, and advocate of women's rights. She wrote Sultana’s Dream in 1905, which is a feminist utopia novella, where women run the world and men are in the purdah system. (Delightful satire, to say the least.)
Padmarag is another novel published in 1924, chronicling the lives of women from diverse religions, backgrounds and ethnicities, who are working together for the upliftment of women in their society.

I was most pleasantly surprised to read her progressive ideas and way of thinking, considering the era in which she lived and published these works.

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead.

Padmarag refers to the central character of the novel, via whom Begum Rokeya gives readers a most unconventional ending of courtship, rejecting domesticity in favor of individualism.
Rokeya’s Padmarag is a woman who has gone through a series of misfortunes, and arrives at Tarini Bhavan (the welfare center / school) utterly heartbroken and dejected.
Her story arch then moves to the unfolding of her personality to a strong, hardworking, self-sacrificing woman who though very much in love, chooses not to accept the expected path of domesticity.

The novel also depicts the circumstances of women in those days via other characters working at Tarini Bhavan, most of whom have back stories of suffering, either in patriarchy or matrimony, and have left their pasts behind to dedicate their lives to others in need. It portrays the suffering of women in the era, as well as the struggles of women in power during those days.
It does an excellent job of championing education for women, and not just the rote system that is the norm in our country, but quality education that would help them be self-sufficient and not ‘wooden dolls’.

Where Sultana’s Dream is a cheerful, often hilarious satire in an imaginary world, Padmarag is a gritty, melodramatic & authentic work of literature that outlines issues women face even to this day.

I didn't know this existed until yesterday, and new it would be my cup of tea just from the blurb about it. I was absolutely right. This is totally my thing, and it was so worth the read.

I haven't read very much at all of what one would call utopian fiction. Dystopian works are so much more popular these days. Anyway, Sultana's Dream is a literal dream, and it's hard not to like the idea of it. Mostly in the sense that it is wild to imagine a woman in 1905 Bangladesh imagining solar power, cloud water, and a total lack of men in all important spheres.

This was really interesting and unexpected, and I definitely recommend it for anyone looking to explore classic feminist short stories.

Giving this a four because, as naïve as it might be, as leap-of-faith as it is... it is written in 1905.

Advocating for a feminist utopia centered in renewal energy in 1905? This should not be as silenced as it is, it shouldn't be as unknown as it is right now.

It's a 20 minute read and you'll be a better person only for knowing that this exists.

A Celebration of Women Writers:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/sultana/dream/dream.html

It was really interesting reading this short feminist utopia from 1905 India. The story is understandably very simple as it is only a few pages long, but lays out various aspects of this role-reversed female-led society. Ladyland's resemblances to [b:Herland|531509|Herland|Charlotte Perkins Gilman|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1403189138s/531509.jpg|83484] were many (peace and no crime, vegetarianism/veganism, efficiency, freedom, highly prizing education, etc), though I'm not sure how much that is to do with the shared idea of what a specifically feminist utopia might look like verses common ideas of utopia in general.

Short interesting early feminist story, I don't believe that one gender is essentially more nurturing than the other but her prescience about certain technology is interesting.