Feminist Fables

A reworking of fairy tales from the East and West.

There was once a man who thought he could do anything, even be a woman. So he acquired a baby, changed its diapers and fed the damn thing three times a night. He did all the housework, was deferential to men, and got worn out. But he had a brother, Jack Cleverfellow, who hired a wife and got it all done.

Suniti Namjoshi is elegant and subversive in creating new patterns of meaning through stories that are simultaneously spare and full of rich...