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Title: Primarily non-fiction
Review: Purdah, or the seclusion of a group of people from the rest of the world, is a practice still alive and well in several parts of the world. While it may not be very common in India at the beginning of the twenty-first century, it was quite common during the first half of the twentieth. This book presents short story "Sultana's Dream" and the recollections of women living under purdah complied by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. There is also an introduction to each work and an analysis of Hossain's life and writing by Roushan Jahan interspersed between each piece. In other words, there are four individual essays and one short story in this collection. It could be difficult for women today who do not live in purdah to understand but it is important to remember our collective past and realise similar things are happening today.
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