Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Widely regarded as Bengal’s earliest and boldest feminist writer, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880–1932) was a woman of many talents. She was a pioneering and creative educationist. The school she founded in Kolkata, the Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls, still thrives.

She was also a social activist, who organized middle-class women in undertaking slum development and training poor women in income-generating activities. Her best-known publications are Sultana’s Dream (1905), Padmarag (1924), and Abarodhbasini (1931). She is an iconic figure in South Asia, especially among Bengalis in Bangladesh and India.