Hi team,

I hope you had a great Galentine’s day, however you chose to celebrate it!

The email is not about Galentine’s day though, it’s inspired by the book I’m reading now, The Tale Of Genji. This is a solid candidate for the first novel ever written, and it was written by Lady Murasaki, a lady. She was also a lady who knew Sei Shonagon, author of The Pillow Book, although if you think this might be a segue to an inspiring tale of Heian period sestrahood; no:

The two women knew one another well enough for Lady Murasaki to criticize Sei Shonagon in her own dairy for being frivolous in her impulse "to sample each interesting thing that comes along," and overly self-satisfied in her Chinese compositions, that are "full of imperfections."

http://www.washburn.edu/reference/bridge24/heian.html

Having celebrated these two literary innovators, let’s turn our attention to the thousand years thereafter with two short stories I can highly recommend to you.

You may have read Naomi Alderman’s enjoyable novel The Power, and may (like me) have enjoyed the way she treated faith and religious power in that novel. If so, you will delight in this story she wrote about the prophet Elijah:

On the first night of Passover, the Prophet Elijah came to the house of Mr and Mrs Rosenbaum in Finchley Lane, Hendon. Mrs Rosenbaum had opened the door as usual, after supper, at the point in the evening when one is supposed to anticipate the arrival of the Prophet Elijah, whose appearance will herald the beginning of the Messianic Age. Mr Rosenbaum, standing at the long dining table, began to recite the verses that accompany this moment: ‘Pour out thy wrath upon the nations who know you not,’ he declared.

https://granta.com/soon-and-in-our-days/

Longtime friend of Fem Fri, Ellis Saxey, also writes about power (but also startups!) in this excellent short story. The end of this one haunts me. Enjoy:

Julian, the CEO, looms too large for the tiny office room. I look at his forehead, to avoid his intense eyes without seeming shifty, but end up mesmerised by the sheen on his slicked-back dark hair. “Thanks for coming, Dilawar,” he says, and enfolds my hand in his, and I really feel like he means it. Posh boys are good at sounding sincere.

http://thefantasistmag.com/raising-the-sea-drowned/

A xx.