En cours de chargement...
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue and courage. Palestine, 1990. Seventeen-year-old Isra prefers reading books to entertaining the suitors her father has chosen for her. Over the course of a week, the naïve and dreamy girl finds herself quickly betrothed and married, and is soon living in Brooklyn.
There Isra struggles to adapt to the expectations of her oppressive mother-in-law Fareeda and strange new husband Adam, a pressure that intensifies as she begins to have children - four daughters instead of the sons Fareeda tells Isra she must bear. Brooklyn, 2008. Eighteen-year-old Deya, Isra's oldest daughter, must meet with potential husbands at her grandmother Fareeda's insistence, though her only desire is to go to college.
But her grandmother is firm on the matter : the only way to secure a worthy future for Deya is through marriage to the right man. But fate has a will of its own, and soon Deya will find herself on an unexpected path that leads her to shocking truths about her family...
Etaf Rum
Palestine, 1990. Isra learns she is to be married to an American. She leaves for Brooklyn full of hope – soon ruined by reality. Eighteen years later, her daughter Deya is about to go through an arranged marriage as well. As revolution grows inside her, she finds out the truth about her parents' death.
This debut novel by Palestinian American author Etaf Rum is a heartbreaking portrait of several generations of women torn between tradition and the need for freedom, and of the way the world still treats them today. An important read.