The definitive biography of a woman born into a deeply fanatical environment in nineteenth-century Persia, who spent her life denouncing the second-class status of women and who sacrificed her life for her beliefs.

Rejoice In My Gladness

by Janet Ruhe-Schoen

• Trade Paper 350 pp.
• $18.00 US $20.00 Canada
• 978-1-931847-84-1

Rejoice in My Gladness is a biography of one of the leading feminists of the 1800s. The book tells how she began teaching the equality between men and women in largely Muslim Persia and how she was eventually martyred for her outspokenness and courage in the face of the male governing establishment in Persia.

Drawing on extensive research and steeped in the culture of daily life in nineteenth-century Persia, this is the definitive account of the life of Tahirih-a renowned poetess and one of the leading feminists of her time.  Rejoice in My Gladness follows the life of Tahirih from her birth through her adulthood, covering important events such as her marriage, her controversial conversion to the Babi Faith, and her execution due to her beliefs and activities.  The reader will see how Tahirih changed the face of women's rights forever, as she was the first woman in recorded Middle Eastern history to remove her veil before an assembly of men.  At her execution, her last words have been recorded as, "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you will never stop the emancipation of women."

Janet Ruhe-Schoen is the author of two nonfiction books, A Love Which Does Not Wait and The Nightingale, Baha'u'llah / El Ruisenor, Baha'u'llah, and a book of poetry, A Woman's Moods (Are Never Done), published under the pseudonym Simona Ruiz.  She is a collage artist and has worked as a vocalist and actress.  She lives in Beacon, New York.