A woman is no man av Etaf Rum

 

Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue and courage. Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the nave and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn. There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isras oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareedas insistence, though her only desire is to go to college. But her grandmother is firm on the matter: the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honurs, secrets and betrayls. love and violence. It is a intens glimpse into a controlling and closed culture world, and a universial tale about family and a way silences and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.

Bokomslag och beskrivning av bokens handling hämtad från Bokus.

Då var det Palestina jag och Evelina täckte in i vårt läsprojekt Världen runt med den här boken, och den som många andra från denna region handlar om kvinnors utsatthet både i sin familj och utanför den på grund av ansendet som familjen visar utåt och hedern, men det är en av de bättre skildringarna av dessa som gjorde denna så bra. Den hade mig i sitt grepp från början till slut jag ville så gärna veta vad som hade hänt kvinnorna i familjen som vi fick träffa, plus att det var en bok som gick bra att lyssna på som ljudbok.