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MENOPAUSAL
PALESTINE Women At The Edge
Suad Amiry
Rs 250 Pb 2010
81-88965-59-6
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Palestine, menopausal? Can
a women's condition called ‘change of life’
afflict a state-in-the-making? Suad Amiry's wacky,
irreverent, unmistakably political account links the
state of Palestine to the lives of ten women for whom
Palestine—or its absence—was the centrifugal
force around which their lives revolved.
For 40 years, from the 1967 war till Hamas' victory
in 2006, the ten women covered
in this book shared a past and unfulfilled dreams and
aspirations. With that victory,
however, they now mourn the loss of a diverse
Arab culture, of secularism and pluralism, and their
replacement by what Amiry calls ‘local nationalism’
and ‘global religious fundamentalism’.
She recalls the social and political history of Palestine ‘through
the lives of my PLO women's generation’, in what can only be
called a personal-political tour de force.
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SUAD
AMIRY
is an architect, and Founder-Director of RIWAQ: the Centre for
Architectural Conservation in Ramallah. Amiry won Italy's
prestigious Viareggio-Versilia Prize in 2004, and her
first book,Sharon and My Mother-in-Law
was long-listed for the Lettre
Ulysses Award for Reportage. She is the author of
Golda Slept Here
(2014).
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| Amiry adds dollops of humour
and irreverence, and succeeds in publishing an entertaining and
insightful book on the lives of women in conflict-ridden Palestine.
It is nothing short of brilliant to find to find humour in lives marred
with the constant threat of conservative values and death.
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—The Book Review
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| Each story is interesting
and colourful on its own, but, stitched together, the result
is a poignant, beautiful and powerful narrative.
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—The Hindu
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| There is comedy
and farce here.. .
and Amiry uses it potential generously though lightly
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—Business Standard
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