I nearly let my purple sparkly sorting hat decide what I would talk about this week. If I\u2019d had just a little more energy, I\u2019d have written a list of all the subjects (I\u2019m thinking about so many things right now, ranging from whether I should write a vampire cookbook to how to deal with silencing in the current political environment) and chosen one at random. This is the first day in two weeks where the morning began with merely moderate pain, however, and fatigue is ever-present, so I played Solitaire. This was entirely the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
The postie just rang my doorbell and she had a little package for me. In the package was something I\u2019ve been after for a long, long time. Let me tell you about it.<\/p>\n
The book is by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain<\/a>. It\u2019s two novellas, Sultana\u2019s Dream<\/i> and Padmarag<\/i>. Hossain wrote Sultana\u2019s Dream<\/i> in 1905. Padmarag<\/i> was translated in 1924, but Hossain wrote it in Bengali. Hossain was a feminist bilingual writer of speculative fiction, how could I not want to read her work? And it\u2019s the hundredth year of the publication of Padmarag very, very soon. I shall celebrate, with food, music and with a reading. Whether that reading is for myself alone or online to share depends. If you\u2019re reading this and would like to be a part of it, let me know!<\/p>\n One last note. It\u2019s Mizrachi Heritage Month right now. Reading the writing of Mizrachi Jews or cooking delicious Mizrachi food doesn\u2019t mean you support what Netanyahu\u2019s doing. It does, however, help us understand a bit about the cultures are of the those Jews who never left the Middle East. Last year I read (here\u2019s a list in case this appeals to you<\/a>), and this year it\u2019s all about the food. Next year it will probably be both. Right now, though, I\u2019m playing the music of Ofra Haza: my favourite song (\u201cKirya\u201d) changes the rhythm of my typing.<\/p>\n My background is mostly from Ashkenaz, with a bit of Sephardi. That\u2019s different music and different food. Now, if you will please excuse me, I\u2019m very excited about finally getting a copy of Hossain\u2019s works and I need to read them at once!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I nearly let my purple sparkly sorting hat decide what I would talk about this week. If I\u2019d had just a little more energy, I\u2019d have written a list of all the subjects (I\u2019m thinking about so many things right now, ranging from whether I should write a vampire cookbook to how to deal with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,6,21],"tags":[802,804,803],"class_list":["post-3054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","category-fiction","category-music","tag-hossain","tag-padmarag","tag-sultanas-dream"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3054"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3056,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions\/3056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}