From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this beautifully written memoir, Makdisi (author of Beirut Fragments; sister of the late Edward Said) explores the lives of three generations of Palestinian women, deftly illuminating a tumultuous century of modern Middle Eastern history, while raising important questions about the efficacy of ideology, the process of social development and the role of memory. Opening with the author's birth during WWII—"my birth occurred at a particularly unromantic time: the anxiety of the war and the events in Palestine and Egypt weighed heavily on my parents"—the volume grows ever more engaging as Makdisi moves into the distant past of her grandmother Munira Badr Musa (or Teta) and her mother, Hilda Musa Said. Makdisi moves easily between dispassionate historical report and deeply felt emotion, mining first-person accounts where available and offering extensive research to fill in the gaps. Touching on one calamitous event after the other, from the devastating post-WWI famine in the Levant through the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and up to the Lebanese civil war—and explaining how the lives of women shaped and were shaped by each—Makdisi demonstrates how discussions of tradition and modernity generally miss the mark. "The word tradition is used," she says, "much more than it is explained," and women's specific histories, as they were actually lived generation by generation, are rarely taken into account. Valuable in its insights, sophisticated in its execution, this book deserves to be widely read. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Relié .
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Relié .
Booklist
*Starred Review* What began as an inquiry into the lives of Makdisi's grandmother and mother grew into a far-reaching and arresting explication of Arab womanhood. Born in 1940 in Jerusalem, Makdisi suffered the tragic Palestinian disenfranchisement and has lived in Cairo, Syria, the U.S., and Beirut, writing about the Lebanon War in Beirut Fragments (1990). Here she brings her exceptional gifts for deciphering complicated political and social matters to a perceptive and gloriously detailed study of three generations of Protestant Arab women versed in the conundrums of imperialism and the trauma of exile. Brilliant analysis of the influence of British missionaries in the Middle East and women's sovereignty at home informs her portrait of her grandmother (Teta is an Arab word for granny), a schoolteacher and a "feared and respected matriarch." Makdisi then reflects on her mother's unshakable convictions regarding women's role as "towers of strength" responsible for running a nurturing home and refuge from a violent world, values Makdisi contrasts with her struggle to fulfill ambitions both domestic and professional. This is an illuminating and significant work, laced with Makdisi's candid, richly substantiated, deeply felt, and unexpected insights into traditional and modern women's lives. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Relié .
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à lédition Relié .
