Rajmohan's Wife and Sultana's Dream
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Rajmohan’s Wife is the story of Matangini, a beautiful woman married to a violent, jealous man. Unable to marry the man she loves—who happens to be her own sister’s husband—she settles for the villainous Rajmohan, an abusive man who rules his middle-class Bengali household with an iron fist. With the help of her friend Kanak, Matangini does her best to avoid her husband’s wrath, illuminating the importance of solidarity among women faced with oppression. Vindictive and cruel, Rajmohan secretly enacts a plan to rob Madhav, his brother-in-law, in order to obtain and invalidate a will.
Sultana’s Dream is set in Ladyland is a feminist utopia ruled by women, a perfect civilization with no need for men, who remain secluded and without power. Free to develop their own society, women have invented flying cars, perfected farming to the point where no one must work, and harnessed the energy of the sun. With men under control, there is no longer fear, crime, or violence. Ultimately, Ladyland is a world made to mirror our own, a satirical exploration of the absolute power wielded by men over women, and a political critique of Bengali society at large. Sultana’s Dream is more than a science fiction story; it is an act of resistance made by a woman who would shape the lives of her people through advocacy, education, and activism for generations to come.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Rajmohan’s Wife and Sultana’s Dream is a classic of Bengali literature and utopian science fiction reimagined for modern readers.
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Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838-1894) was an Indian novelist, poet, and journalist. Born into a Bengali Brahmin family, he was highly educated from a young age, graduating from Presidency College, Kolkata with an Arts degree in 1858. He later became one of the first graduates of the University of Calcutta before obtaining a Law degree in 1869. Throughout his academic career, he published numerous poems and stories in weekly newspapers and other publications. His first novel, Rajmohan’s Wife (1864), is his only work in English. Between 1863 and 1891, he worked for the government of Jessore, eventually reaching the positions of Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector. Anandamath (1828), a novel based on the Sannyasi Rebellion against British forces, served as powerful inspiration for the emerging Indian nationalist movement. Chatterjee is also known as the author of Vande Mataram, a Bengali and Sanskrit poem set to music by Bengali polymath and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932) was a Bengali writer, feminist, educator, and activist. Born in Rangpur, modern-day Bangladesh, Rokeya was raised in a family of intellectuals and government figures. Interested in literature from a young age, she was encouraged by her older sister Karimunnesa, a poet and social worker, to expand her linguistic knowledge beyond Arabic and Persian by learning Bengali and English. In 1898, Rokeya married an older magistrate from Bhagalpur, a widower who encouraged her to continue her education as well as to pursue the craft of writing. In 1902, she published an essay in Bengali, beginning a career that would soon flourish with Matichur (1905) and Sultana’s Dream (1908), the latter of which has since been recognized as a groundbreaking work of science fiction and feminist utopianism. Following her husband’s death, she founded the Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ High School in his honor. Initially based in Bhagalpur, she moved the school to Calcutta in 1911 and acted as its head administrator until her death in 1932. Referred to honorifically as Begum Rokeya, she spent the remainder of her life as a tireless advocate for the rights of Bengalis and Muslim women.
