Book Size: 6"x 9"
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781566565585
Imprint: Interlink Books
Edition: 1
Photography by: Stuart West
Translator: Monique Arav
Release date: 2004
Category: LiteratureMidnight Tales
A Woman's Journey through the Middle East
By Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi • Photography by Stuart West
$ 15“Sociologist and author Al-Rawi (Grandmother’s Secrets) here offers up a collection of poetic vignettes about past and present Arab folkways in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Weaving together childhood memories and interviews with Arab women, she draws the reader behind closed doors to meet a colorful and intriguing casts of characters, including her Aunts Fatima and Kawthar, her Uncle Mahmoud, her brother Manour, her parents, her grandmother, and many other good-hearted people. Al-Rawi’s writing is deeply evocative: the reader sees, hears, touches, and tastes what she describes. Rich with historical and cultural detail about a wide range of subjects-from shopping in a carpet souk to female circumcision, wearing the veil, pearl diving, marriage, women’s roles, and much more-this work also includes Arab proverbs, endnotes and a brief bibliography. Highly recommended for anthropology, sociology, and women’s studies collections.” — Library Journal
About this book
"In actual fact, the only thing that matters in life is love, yet the inquisitive mind must be fed a few facts... Look at Baghdad!" commands Rosina-Fawzia al-Rawi's lively and imperious aunt Fatima, one of the characters in this delightful collection of personal essays.
Aunt Fatima would have approved of this book, for as her niece turns her eye first on Baghdad and then all the lands of the Middle East, ending with her research into women's customs in the Emirates, she devotes herself as a lover does to all the intimate details around her. Whether she recounts a trip to buy a rug, a childhood incident on a Lebanese playground, or explicates Arab poetry, al-Rawi's collection is full of all that Aunt Fatima recommends- her beloved poetry, the ever-present history of these ancient lands, tender and intricate accounts of daily life, and quirky, nuanced tracings of the workings of the human heart.
About the author
Dr. Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi was born in Baghdad and spent her childhood in Iraq and Lebanon. She is the author of Grandmother’s Secrets: The Ancient Rituals and Healing Power of Belly Dancing, Divine Names: The 99 Healing Names of the One God, and Midnight Tales: A Woman’s Journey through the Middle East. She holds a PhD in Islamic studies. She completed her Arabic, Islamic, and ethnological studies at the Universities of Vienna and Cairo and has been teaching Sufism for over 20 years. She holds workshops in various countries and her books were translated into Arabic, German, English and French. Al-Rawi’s workshops, classes, and training courses are based on knowledge drawn from psychology, spirituality, cultural anthropology, and medicine. They are underpinned in particular by a body of knowledge known as Sufism, which has been collected and passed down over centuries, especially in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Dancing, meditation, breathing techniques, traditional Sufi-practices such as zikr, whirling or working with the Divine Names all focus on opening the heart and embedding oneself into the great universal laws, beyond egocentric and social norms, connecting body, soul and spirit. In Vienna she set up a center for female spirituality, where seminars, workshops, and personal support on the path to self-discovery are offered.
Reviews
“Sociologist and author Al-Rawi (Grandmother’s Secrets) here offers up a collection of poetic vignettes about past and present Arab folkways in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Weaving together childhood memories and interviews with Arab women, she draws the reader behind closed doors to meet a colorful and intriguing casts of characters, including her Aunts Fatima and Kawthar, her Uncle Mahmoud, her brother Manour, her parents, her grandmother, and many other good-hearted people. Al-Rawi’s writing is deeply evocative: the reader sees, hears, touches, and tastes what she describes. Rich with historical and cultural detail about a wide range of subjects-from shopping in a carpet souk to female circumcision, wearing the veil, pearl diving, marriage, women’s roles, and much more-this work also includes Arab proverbs, endnotes and a brief bibliography. Highly recommended for anthropology, sociology, and women’s studies collections.” —Library Journal “The author’s travels through her native region offer insights into Arabic history, culture, and language as well as daily life in the Middle East today.” —Multicultural Review
“Sociologist and author Al-Rawi (Grandmother’s Secrets) here offers up a collection of poetic vignettes about past and present Arab folkways in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Kuwait, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Weaving together childhood memories and interviews with Arab women, she draws the reader behind closed doors to meet a colorful and intriguing casts of characters, including her Aunts Fatima and Kawthar, her Uncle Mahmoud, her brother Manour, her parents, her grandmother, and many other good-hearted people. Al-Rawi’s writing is deeply evocative: the reader sees, hears, touches, and tastes what she describes. Rich with historical and cultural detail about a wide range of subjects-from shopping in a carpet souk to female circumcision, wearing the veil, pearl diving, marriage, women’s roles, and much more-this work also includes Arab proverbs, endnotes and a brief bibliography. Highly recommended for anthropology, sociology, and women’s studies collections.” —Library Journal
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