Comments on: Ramadhan book club: Salam Maria

By: Sufu Hashim

Sufu Hashim — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 02:13:38 +0000

I am looking for info on Siti Zubaida heroric wife of Sultan Zain ul abideen around 16th century.

By: Jha

Jha — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 17:30:34 +0000

I’m Malaysian, and it’s incredibly hard to get good books written by Malaysians there, because there isn’t a whole lot of reviews written about them.

So thanks for this – I’m going to hunt for it now!

By: Richmond

Richmond — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:55:03 +0000

I was reminded by a Filipino Feminisl Novelist, Lualhati Bautista. Her works are so moving that the Department of education brought one of her books, Dekada 70, which talks about a wife with five sons, who were all members of a militant group that opposes the dictatorship in the 1970′s here in the Philippines.

By: s.c.

s.c. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 02:23:55 +0000

This reminds me of the classic “Sultana’s Dream” written by the Bengali writer, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880 – 1932) during the time of the British Raj. Indeed, many monuments in Bangladesh (and India) are named after her! She envisions a society where the traditional gender roles for men and women are reversed. It’s a short story, and I believe that it is accessible on the web somewhere. I highly recommend it.

Otherwise you can get it in Susie Tharu and K. Lalita’s wonderful two volume anthology “Women Writing in India: 600 B.C to the Present”. It’s a gem, and it’s got seminal feminist works translated into English by South Asian women of all backgrounds, caste’s and religions (including Muslim).