Product Description

When her poised and sophisticated yuppie assistant at the Cairo bureau of the Wall Street Journal suddenly 'adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist', Geraldine Brooks set out to discover the truth about women and Islam. Sometimes adopting a chador as camouflage, she was granted meetings (and often astonishingly intimate insights) by everyone from Queen Noor of Jordan to former Iranian President Rafsanjani's daughter. She met with Palestinians protesting about 'honour killings' for adultery and sheltered girls transformed into warriors by the Emirates' armed forces. Throughout the Middle East, Brooks was invited into the homes and lives of these women where she found real stories that overturn western stereotypes. Fair-minded and often revelatory, Nine Parts of Desire is an extraordinarily rich tapestry of the different lives women lead under Islam, and a captivating and diverse portrait of a little known world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14481 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-22
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
Fascinating, meticulously reported, and elegantly written (Susan Faludi )

She takes us behind the veils and into the homes of women in every corner of the Middle East . . . It is in her descriptions of her meetings that the book excels (Observer )

Susan Faludi
'Fascinating, meticulously reported, and elegantly written'

Ann Treneman, Observer
'She takes us behind the veils . . . It is in her descriptions of
her meetings that the book excels'

Customer Reviews

Really Improved My Opinion of Ayatollah Khomeni and Iran
I'm an American woman who has lived overseas in Morocco for twelve years. My friends and I are reading this book for our monthly bookclub selection. None of us was able to put the book down, once we started it. We all read the book in one or two days.

The author is a journalist who spent considerable time in the Middle East, reporting from various countries. Although this is not a scholarly work, it is well-researched. The book focuses on her own personal experiences in each country, and ancecdotes from various women she met in each country.

For me, the most interesting parts of the book discussed the home and personal life of the Ayatollah Khomeni. After reading this book, my opinion of both him, and of Islamic life in Iran, went up by about 300 percent. The author met and interviewed his wife, and various family members. He was a fairly modern, new-age husband, and playful father, who even got up in the middle of the night and gave his kids their bottles, and changed their diapers. The only thing he was quite strict about was the Islamic religion.

Anyone who is interested in the lives of women in the Middle East should read this book. The book is as accurate today as it was when it was written.

Fascinating
This is an absolutely fascinating book. Brooks doesn't really bog the reader down with too much "research" - she gives you a good historical and literary background, but she fleshes out that framework with anecdotes from her meetings with Muslim women. Though it is obvious that Brooks abhors the treatment of women under most forms of Islam, she is very careful to show that this is mostly a political issue and NOT actually advocated in the Koran.

Objective insights into women behind the veil
I have spent time in the Middle East and been offered books such as "Princess" and "Not Without My Daughter" by Western friends positive that the Middle East must be a terrible place for Western women ... It was very enlightening, refreshing, interesting and thought provoking to read a book from an author with such a wealth of experience and such a desire to learn, to understand and not just to brandish and judge. She writes of movements happening within the culture and not just of stagnated ways. Koranic verses are used as a backdrop for understanding that what some may interpret as Islamic is mearly that, an interpretation. I highly enjoyed this book. I will read it again. And I will definately recommend it to anyone interested enough to understand some of the different perspectives governing women behind the veil!