Although Shahid benefited professionally from her patriarchal ties, she admirably used them for the greater good.
A poignant story of a happy partnership that encouraged one Pakistani woman to face her oppressors.
Raised in the tolerant, diverse country of Kuwait to a Pakistani family of middle-class professionals, the author moved to Lahore for the first time in 1985 and felt the shackles of religious restrictions. The Kuwaiti war left the family bereft of her beloved uncle, and the author turned inward, becoming a “serious and spiritual young woman” more interested in her literary studies than in getting married. Working at the Imperial College of Business Studies in Lahore, she met a business student from a prominent newspaper family, Ednan Awais Shahid, and they fell in love and married in 1996; he admired her plucky, outspoken side, as did Ednan’s father, who eventually convinced her that taking over the women’s section of his popular newspaper, the Daily Khabrain, would do more to help the plight of women in Pakistan than her teaching could. The author transformed the pages into a forum to expose horrendous stories of oppression and poverty in the largely tribal, illiterate society of Pakistan—e.g., tales of organ selling, gang rape, honor killings, and acid and stove burnings. It soon became clear to the crusading journalist that she lived in two countries—rich and poor, urban and rural—that could have inhabited two different centuries. Through meeting the rich and powerful friends of her father-in-law at the family dinner table, she was encouraged to become one of the members of the “proportional representation” in the Punjab parliament (17 percent of seats reserved for women, as proposed by President General Musharraf in 2002), where, despite being jeered and having her microphone often switched off, she advocated for criminalizing acid attacks and banning private moneylending. Her marriage to an understanding, loving Ednan forms the core of this deeply felt narrative.
Although Shahid benefited professionally from her patriarchal ties, she admirably used them for the greater good.Pub Date: March 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-393-08148-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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