Fifty Years in the Virtuous City, by Leo Mandel

[mllelaurel]

"Fifty Years in the Virtuous City" is a short story very loosely based on "The Sultana's Dream," which can be found here. It tells the story of two women, Amrita Karim and Suhela Mullick, who live in a world a couple of steps off from our own, in a matriarchal country which does not exist but could. It tells of their rivalry in academia, their work, their brush with the brutality of war. The relationship itself is understated, an ever-present backdrop to everything Amrita (the narrator) feels, though not acted on till the end of the story. The worldbuilding is fantastic, the characters are three-dimensional, and Amrita's feelings are rendered vibrantly, even (or possibly especially) because they are not always easily quantifiable.

Highly recommended.