Rajmohan’s Wife and Sultana’s Dream (1864/1908) features the debut novel of Indian writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and a story by Bengali writer, feminist, and educator Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Rajmohan’s Wife, Chattopadhyay’s only work in English, launched his career as a leading Bengali intellectual and political figure. Written in English, Sultana’s Dream originated as a way of passing time for its young author while her husband was away on work. Initially published in The Indian Ladies Magazine, Sultana’s Dream helped establish Rokeya’s reputation as a leading figure in Bengali arts and culture. 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.

THERE is a small village on the river Madhumati. On account of its being the residence of wealthy zemindars it is regarded as a village of importance. One Chaitra afternoon the summer heat was gradually abating with the weakening of the once keen rays of the sun; a gentle breeze was blowing; it began to dry the perspiring brow of the peasant in the field and play with the moist locks of village women just risen from their siesta. It was after such a siesta that a woman of about thirty was engaged in her toilet in a humble thatched cottage. She took very little time to finish the process usually so elaborate with womankind; a dish of water, a tin-framed looking-glass three inches wide, and a comb matching it sufficed for the task. Then, a little vermilion adorned her forehead. Last of all some betel leaves dyed her lips. Thus armed, a formidable champion of the world-conquering sex set out with a pitcher in her arm and pushing open the wattled gate of a neighbouring house entered within it. There were four huts in the house which she entered. They had mud floors and .bamboo walls. There was no sign of poverty anywhere, everything was neat and tidy. The four huts stood on the four sides of a quadrangle. Of these three had entrances opening on the yard, the fourth opened outwards. This last was die reception room, while the others, screened on all sides, constituted the zenana. Some brinjals and salads were growing on the carefully tilled plot of land in front of die raised terrace before the outer room. The whole was enclosed by a reed fence with a bamboo gate. So the woman could easily make her way into the house. It is superfluous to add that she went straight towards the zenana. I know not where the other inmates of the house had gone after their siesta, but at that time diere were only two persons there—one, a young woman of eighteen bent over her embroidery and a child of four immersed in play. His elder brother had wilfully left his ink-pot behind when going to school. The child's eyes had fallen on it, and he was joyfully smearing his face with die ink. He seemed to be afraid of his brother coming back and snatching the ink-pot away, and so he was emptying the pot. The newcomer sat down on the floor by the side of her who was working and asked, "What are you doing?"

Rajmohan's Wife, first serialized in 1864, marked Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's debut as a writer. He went on to write fourteen novels in Bengali, including the epochal Anandamath and the verse 'Vande Mataram', which became the national song of IndiA. The beautiful and passionate Matangini, married to a villainous man and in love with her sister's husband, represents the vitality of women who remain strong in the face of brutality and the confining expectations of middle-class society. Bankimchandra's vivid descriptions of the routine of Bengali households provide a revealing portrait of life in the nineteenth century.

A History of the Indian Novel in English traces the development of the Indian novel from its beginnings in the late nineteenth century up until the present day. Beginning with an extensive introduction that charts important theoretical contributions to the field, this History includes extensive essays that shed light on the legacy of English in Indian writing. Organized thematically, these essays examine how English was "made Indian" by writers who used the language to address specifically Indian concerns. Such concerns revolved around the question of what it means to be modern as well as how the novel could be used for anti-colonial activism. By the 1980s, the Indian novel in English was a global phenomenon, and India is now the third largest publisher of English-language books. Written by a host of leading scholars, this History invites readers to question conventional accounts of India's literary history.

Rajmohan's Wife and Sultana's Dream (1864/1908) features the debut novel of Indian writer Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and a story by Bengali writer, feminist, and educator Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. Rajmohan's Wife, Chattopadhyay's only work in English, launched his career as a leading Bengali intellectual and political figure. Written in English, Sultana's Dream originated as a way of passing time for its young author while her husband was away on work. Initially published in The Indian Ladies Magazine, Sultana's Dream helped establish Rokeya's reputation as a leading figure in Bengali arts and culture. 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.

Finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize The New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year In her follow-up to Small Island, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, Andrea Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her "Marguerite." Together they live through the bloody Baptist War and the violent and chaotic end of slavery. An extraordinarily powerful story, "The Long Song leaves its reader with a newly burnished appreciation for life, love, and the pursuit of both" (The Boston Globe).

This book was written by a Hindu, the grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi. His intent, in writing on eight Muslims and their influence on India in the twentieth century, is to reduce the gulf between Hindu and Muslims. Focusing on figures viewed as heroes by sub-continent Muslims, he shows that they can be admired by Hindus as well--that they need not be frozen in Hindu minds as foes. Here is a fascinating account of twentieth-century India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh told through biographical sketches of eight men: Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817-1898), Fazlul Huq (1873-1962), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), Muhammad Iqbal (1876-1938), Muhammad Ali (1878-1931), Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958), Liaqat Ali Khan (1895-1951), and Zakir Husain (1897-1969).