The volume would have been more inclusive if two Bangladeshi writers who have written in English on Rokeya could have been included in this book: Roushan Jahan and Sonia Nishat Amin. Hasan, the other writers include Mahua Sarkar, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Bharati Ray, Srimati Mukherjee, Fayeza Hasanat, Barnita Bagchi and Md Rezaul Haque. Their volume "is intended to address that gap, and to pay tribute to a veritable reformist who is often credited with changing the circumstances of Bengali Muslim women and fittingly described as a feminist foremother" (xxi).Īpart from Professor Quayum and Dr. However, the editors note that there was no book-length study or edited collection of critical essays in English on Rokeya's life and work. All these have helped spread her work further and brought her more attention. There have also been a number of "authoritative translations" of her work into English, published by leading publishers such as Brill, OUP, and Penguin.
Rokeya has been the subject of critical essays, book chapters and graduate theses. However, apart from the pieces that were originally written in English, the book is in Bangla and therefore not available to non-Bangla readers. As the editors note in their Introduction, interest in Rokeya has grown since the late 1970's with the Bangla Academy, Dhaka, publication of Abdul Quadir's edited volume Rokeya Rachanabali (1973). Apart from "Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain: A Biographical Essay," which was included in The Literary Encyclopedia (2102), the majority of the essays were earlier published in Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature and two in different volumes of South Asia Research.įor all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.Īsiatic is an online journal, so these essays would be available to any researcher interested in Rokeya, but A Feminist Foremother makes it convenient for others who prefer hard copies of material and in one place. In fact, of the thirteen essays included in A Feminist Foremother, only two have not been previously published.
Both of them have been consistently writing on her – with three of the essays in this volume, all previously published, by Professor Quayum and three by Dr. Hasan's doctoral work was a comparative study of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain and other feminist writers. Professor Quayum has edited and translated The Essential Rokeya: Selected Works of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain 1880-1932 (Brill, 2013) and Dr. Mahmudul Hasan, the editors of A Feminist Foremother: Critical Essays on Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, published by Orient Black Swan (21016), have solid credentials.