BookTalk introduces readers to a carefully chosen, provocative selection of novels for reading and informal discussion, considering the author’s writing techniques and the character’s personal journeys. Readings include translations of books from other countries and cultures in the search for fictions that illuminate the lives and understanding of those from all across the globe.
This class focuses on Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (1994) by Geraldine Brooks. Informed by six years in the Middle East as a prizewinning foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, renowned author Geraldine Brooks chronicles the daily life of Muslim women amid the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. In fundamentalist Iran, Brooks finagles an invitation to tea with the Ayatollah’s widow and discovers that Mrs. Khomeini dyes her hair. In Saudi Arabia, she eludes sex segregation to attend a bacchanal, laying bare the hypocrisy of this austere, male-dominated society. In war-torn Ethiopia, she watches a female gynecologist repair women who have undergone genital mutilation. Through captivating firsthand reporting, Brooks's acute analysis of the world’s fastest-growing religion deftly illustrates how Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women yet, in villages and capitals throughout the Middle East, she finds that a feminism of sorts has flowered.
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