Analyse the role and involvement of women in the leadership and authorship of novels in India

Analyse the role and involvement of women in the leadership and authorship of novels in India.

WOMEN were singled out and advised to stay away from immoral influence of novels as they were seen as easily corruptible. Old women listened with fascination to popular Tamil novels.

But women did not remain mere readers of stories written by men, they also began to write novels. In some languages, the early creations of women were poems, essays or autobiographies. Stories of love showed women who could to some extent control their lives. Some women authors also wrote about women who changed the world of both men and women. Rokeya Hossein, a reformer, wrote a fantasy in English called ‘Sultana’s Dream’ showing a world in which women take the place of men.

Men became suspicious of women writing novels or reading them. In the south, women and girls were often discouraged from reading novels.