Sisters in War
A Story of Love, Family, and Survival in the New Iraq
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- $ 47.900,00
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- $ 47.900,00
Descripción editorial
Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq, and the consequences for all those involved.
On the heels of the invasion, twenty-two-year-old Zia accepts a job inside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, trusting that democracy will shield her burgeoning romance with an American contractor from the disapproval of her fellow Iraqis. But as resistance to the U.S. occupation intensifies, Zia and her sister, Nunu, a university student, are targeted by Islamic insurgents and find themselves trapped between their hopes for a new country and the violent reality of a misguided war.
Asquith sets their struggle against the broader U.S. efforts to bring women’s rights to Iraq, weaving the sisters’ story with those of Manal, a Palestinian American women’s rights activist, and Heather, a U.S. army reservist, who work together to found Iraq’s first women’s center. After one of their female colleagues is gunned down on a highway, Manal and Heather must decide whether they can keep fighting for Iraqi women if it means risking their own lives.
In Sisters in War, Christina Asquith introduces the reader to four women who dare to stand up for their rights in the most desperate circumstances. With compassion and grace, she vividly reveals the plight of women living and serving in Iraq and offers us a vision of how women’s rights and Islam might be reconciled.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This elegant narrative chronicles the lives of four women who experienced elation, hope and disappointment following the American invasion of Iraq and the fall of Saddam in 2003. Two Iraqi sisters glimpse a new life following years of oppression: Zia is fluent in English and obtains a job inside the Green Zone working for the Americans; Nunu, the younger and more timid sister, struggles to complete college in the increasingly dangerous urban environment. Asquith (The Emergency Teacher) deftly details the arduousness of establishing women's centers and getting women elected to office through her profile of Heather, once a wonky bureaucrat turned U.S. Army reservist, who must confront sexism within both the U.S. military and the unfamiliar Muslim culture. Lastly is Manal, a women's rights and antiwar activist born in America of Palestinian parents, who struggles to put aside her politics in the interests of helping Iraqi women succeed with the establishment of women's centers. Deftly chronicled by Asquith, who spent two years in Baghdad reporting from the front lines, this informative narrative offers readers a seldom heard female perspective into the everyday lives, struggles, disappointments and triumphs of four women during this chaotic and dangerous time.