A lucid and luminous evocation of growing up in a whirlpool of cultures and the rewarding struggle of sorting it all out. Ahmed (Women’s Studies/Univ. of Mass., Amherst) was born into a professional Egyptian family that thrived in the quasi- republic of King Farouk and the British protectorate. When Nasser came to power in the early 1950s, her father’s influence sank as a result of his protests (on what turned out to be ecologically sound grounds) against the Aswan Dam. The Suez crisis made Nasser a hero in the Arab world and put pressure on Egyptians—until then a motley and proud mixture of Coptic Christian (“the only truly indigenous inhabitants of Egypt”), Muslim, and Jew; of Mediterranean, African, Nilotic—to identify as “Arab.” Growing up in a home where English was honored (although Arabic and French were also spoken), Ahmed had come, with her friends, to regard things Arab as inferior. Faced also with the dichotomy of privilege vs. poverty, always visible in Cairo, Ahmed became more and more confused about who she was and where her loyalties lay. This book is about working out that identity—as a woman in a traditional society, as a “black” at Cambridge University, as a Muslim in the anti-Islamic US environment of the 1980s. Even her feminist colleagues’ prejudice against Islam was extreme, based primarily on what they saw as “fundamentalist” strictures against women. Ahmed examines these events, questioning various cultural frameworks she has encountered: the men- only mosques where the classical Koran is taught, the white male template of Cambridge, and the written culture so different from the fluid oral traditions she examined on a sojourn in Abu Dhabi. She delicately untangles and eloquently describes the threads of political and personal circumstance that led first to confusion and then to understanding. A beautiful tale that is a celebration not only of women and the author’s native country (with all its flaws), but also of intellectual flowering.
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-11518-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1999
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
