Spider-Mother: The Fiction and Politics of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Ben Baer (translator), Smaran Dayal (introduction)

“Groundbreaking…vitally relevant today…fine translations of these important texts.” —Amitav Ghosh, author, most recently of Smoke and Opium’s Hidden Histories

“A gorgeous, urgent compilation of the feminist, decolonizing vision of Rokeya Hossain, and of her understanding that the best speculative fiction poses a challenge to the violence of the present.” —Siddhartha Deb, author of The Light at the End of the World

“Efficiently and affectionately introduced and translated, this book will, at last, ferry Begum Rokeya’s uncommon imagination to new readers.” —Sumana Roy, author of How I Became a Tree and Provincials

Pioneering Indian Muslim feminist Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain wrote speculative fiction, manifestoes, radical reportage, and incisive essays that transformed her experience of enforced segregation into unique interventions against gender oppression everywhere. Her radical imagination links the realities of living in a British colony to the technological and scientific breakthroughs of her time, the effects of hauntingly pervasive systems of sexual domination, and collective dreams of the future, forging a visionary, experimental body of work. Alongside Rokeya’s pathbreaking feminist science fiction story “Sultana’s Dream,” this volume features fresh and exciting new translations of her key Bengali writings and a superbly informative introduction to her life and work. If her contemporary B. R. Ambedkar urged the “annihilation of caste,” Rokeya demands nothing less than the annihilation of sexism, with education as the primary instrument of this revolution. Her brilliant wit and creativity reflect profoundly on the complexities of undoing deep-seated gender supremacy and summon her readers to imagine hitherto undreamed freedoms.

ROKEYA SAKHAWAT HOSSAIN (1880–1932) was born in present-day Bangladesh, then part of colonial India. Despite being deprived of formal education, she became a prominent writer, activist, and educator. The web of her life spanned from the minutiae of running a girls’ school in Kolkata to struggles for women’s emancipation on the national and world stage.

BEN BAER is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Princeton University. He translated The Tale of Hansuli Turn by Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay from Bengali. Baer’s most recent book is Indigenous Education, National Liberation, and the Limits of Modernism.

SMARAN DAYAL is Assistant Professor of Literature at Stevens Institute of Technology. A scholar of American and postcolonial literature, Dayal is co-editor of Fictions of The Book of Firsts and is working on a book titled Afrofutures, Atlantic Decolonial Revisions in African American Science Fiction.

CHITRA GANESH has developed a body of work rooted in drawing and painting, which has evolved to encompass animations, wall drawings, collages, computer generated imagery, video, and sculpture. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, including solo shows at Brooklyn Museum, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; The Rubin Museum of Art, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pennsylvania; and Gothenburg Kunsthalle, Sweden.

SHAHANA HANIF represents New York City’s 39th Council District. She is the first Bangladeshi and Muslim woman elected to the New York City Council and the first woman to represent the 39th District. Before her election, Council Member Hanif served as the Director of Organizing and Community Engagement in the office of former District 39 Council Member Brad Lander.

Genres: Fiction

149 pages, Paperback

Published October 16, 2024

About the author

Begum Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, popularly known as Begum Rokeya, was born in 1880 in the village of Pairabondh, Mithapukur, Rangpur, in what was then the British Indian Empire and is now Bangladesh.

Begum Rokeya was an inspiring figure who contributed much to the struggle to liberate women from the bondage of social malaises. Her life can be seen in the context of other social reformers within what was then India. To raise popular consciousness, especially among women, she wrote a number of articles, stories and novels, mostly in Bengali.

Rokeya used humor, irony, and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali-speaking Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women that were based upon a corrupted version of Islam, asserting that women fulfilling their potential as human beings could best display the glory of Lord. She wrote courageously against restrictions on women in order to promote their emancipation, which, she believed, would come about by breaking the gender division of labor. She rejected discrimination for women in the public arena and believed that discrimination would cease only when women were able to undertake whatever profession they chose. In 1926, Begum strongly condemned men for withholding education from women in name of religion as she addressed the bengal women's education conference:

"The opponents of the female education say that women will be unruly...fie !they call themselves muslims and yet go against the basic tenet of islam which gives equal right to education. If men are not led astray once educated, why should women?"

Reviews

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered Spider Mother through the sari exhibit at the New-York Historical Society, and it has become one of those rare books that reshapes how you think about feminist literature and resistance. The edition pairs Hossain’s pioneering early 20th-century Bengali writings with contemporary illustrations by Chitra Ganesh, creating a visual and textual conversation across time that feels both urgent and dreamlike.

The titular “Sultana’s Dream” remains breathtaking—a feminist utopia where women have harnessed solar power and men live in seclusion, reversing the gender segregation Hossain witnessed under purdah. But it’s the book’s range that makes it essential. The introduction contextualizes Hossain’s work within colonial Bengal and the politics of women’s education, while “Burka” and “Fruit of Knowledge” showcase her capacity for both pointed social critique and allegorical thinking.

What struck me most powerfully was “Woman-Prisoner,” structured as numbered entries that document a woman’s experience of extreme confinement. The serialized, enumerated form performs the absurdity and brutality of women’s treatment under strict purdah. Each numbered section accumulates like evidence in a case file or marks on a prison wall, the format itself becoming a kind of testimony. It reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado’s Especially Heinous, which similarly uses numbered episode synopses (272 capsule summaries of Law & Order: SVU) to build psychological horror through accumulation and pattern. Though Machado’s work is contemporary weird fiction and Hossain’s is turn-of-the-century social realism, both writers understand how numbered, segmented narratives can make visible the structural violence that continuous prose might smooth over.

This is essential reading for anyone interested in feminist utopias, South Asian literature, or the formal innovations writers employ when bearing witness to systemic oppression.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book consists of selected writings by the visionary early 20th century Bengali educator and feminist, Rockets Sakhawat Hossain. The writings highlight the author’s advocacy for the right of women to an education, and to be able to assume their rightful place in society. They also express her opposition to practice of purdah, and the wearing of the burka because they oppress women, and in some instances can result in dire consequences for those impacted by these practices.

The author also calls out the hypocrisy of colonialism especially when one looks at certain European practices which are in fact analogous to those of the people whom they seek to subjugate and civilize.

There are two stories and an essay among the writings that are essential reading. The first is the short story, Sultana’s Dream, about a land ruled by women where men are in purdah and left to cook, clean and care for the children. Although the characters are not well-developed, the story is nevertheless interesting for its depiction of a future where solar energy powers homes and universities, water is gathered from the clouds, and flying cars are used for transport.

The second is the short story Fruit of Knowledge which points out the failures and oppression of colonialism, and how the subjugated masses can overcome it. One of the essential steps in doing so is harnessing the power and knowledge of women.

The third is the report on the adverse impact of the practice of purdah and the wearing of the burka in Women-Prisoner. The report makes clear the harm that these practices do both to the women who suffer as a result of them, and society.

These writings are important because they provide insights into feminist thoughts and beliefs, and movements outside the west, that many people are not aware existed.

[Kalila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book caught my attention because of the artwork. I had never heard of Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, but I was familiar with the illustrations of Chitra Ganesh, and was struck by the bionic woman on the cover.
Sultana’s Dream with its fabulative nature was the most enjoyable short story for me, and to learn it was the first speculative fiction written of a feminist utopia let me know I had come across something incredibly special. Burka and Woman-Prisoner imparted the serious realities in which Sultana’s Dream responded to at the time and still relevant today; the cost of an ornamental existence. A great book encouraging women to reject silence and the barriers we are made accustomed to.

“It is thus necessary to let go of body-beautifying decoration and extend women’s desires to the benefits of knowledge’s beauty. Here is a priceless ornament:

Thieves cannot take it by plunder,
Kinfolk cannot divide it,
In being given it diminishes not,
So it is said the knowledge is the greatest treasure”

[Ananya Garg · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible thing to read Rokeya's writing all these years later, to know she was thinking and feeling and writing these ideas in her time. Chitra's prints beautifully accompany the short stories/essays.