Amazing Women Of The Middle East: 25 Stories From Ancient Times To Present Day

great book

The 25 stories here are concise and inspiring.The author must have done incredible research to have found out so much about so many brave and clever women who fought their way to their top in societies that do their best to keep women down.It's a beautifully produced book, with wonderful illustrations, that will be a great Christmas present: I'll be giving copies to family and friends. It's also a book full of hope in that young women in the Middle East will hopefully read it and know that they too can reach for the stars.The stories themselves are incredibly varied with accounts of ancient leaders, such as the Queen of Sheba, up to modern day heroines like Amal Clooney who is a human rights lawyer and wife of the Hollywood actor with the same surname.I do hope this book gets translated into Arabic, Hindi, Iranian, Turkish and all the other languages of the world. It has a vital message that is, ultimately, valid for all of us: with lots of focus and hard work we can do anything.

The ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’ phenomenon lives on and expandswith authors and publishers developing new ideas for collections of shortbiographies of women past and present who deserve to be more widelyknown and provide potential role models. Wafa’ Tarnowska shines a spotlight on women from the Middle East from across time, their stories arranged chronologically, from Egyptian queen Nefertiti tochampion ice-skater Zahra Lari from Abu Dhabi. The author is an oralstoryteller as well as a writer and this is apparent in the enticing way shedraws readers in by addressing them directly. All 25 women in the book ledfascinating lives and among those about whom I would personally like to findout more are writer and activist May Ziadeh, feminist and translator AnbaraSalam Khalidi and film-maker Nadine Labaki.

We know about Marie Curie, Florence Nightingale, Amelia Earhart, Germaine Greer and the many other inspirational ‘Western’ women but we know very little about their Middle Eastern counterparts. This is a very welcome step in the right direction.

I purchased this book for my daughters and we love it. It is so refreshing to see full representation The books look at historical as well as current inspirational women.

Lovely stories of strong women ❤️ Love this book