Several years ago, a family friend spent three years in Karachi, Pakistan as a teacher in an English-speaking school. I used to love to read her email missives about her life in this land so different from ours, the differences in culture, food, dress and deportment.
Now that she has returned to the United States, I found myself missing this peek into the Middle Eastern culture, and so I have found two books to fill the void.
Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia is by half-Persian, half-Swiss Carmen bin Laden (yes, the same family as Osama). Carmen fell in love with, and married, one of Osama's older brothers, and moved to Saudi Arabia shortly after they were married. Her journey "behind the veil" is not a typical one - the bin Laden family was very wealthy, and she wanted for nothing - except freedom. Despite their means, Carmen well expresses the feelings of isolation and oppression that women in Saudi Arabia felt, with laws about dress and manner and driving and forbidding women to go out alone without a male member of their family with them at all times. In short, there are rules governing every moment of a woman’s life – and none of them are liberal.
Carmen had three daughters, much to the chagrin of her oft-absent husband (they separated before she wrote this book and went back to Switzerland, and after fifteen years, their divorce was finalized in 2006). Carmen's voice is strong and proud, yet disdainful of the treatment of women in her adopted country – rightly so.
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez is another example of a non-fiction book looking "behind the veil," this time into Kabul, Afghanistan, where Rodriguez has lived and worked as, yes, a beauty school operator since 2002. Rodriguez fills her chapters with the stories of the women who attend her school, who come to her shop, and who intersect her life. Their stories are both hopeful and shattering, and again display the parity between life in America and life in a Muslim country for a woman.
Rodriguez is tough, outspoken, not afraid to make waves, and opinionated. Despite that, she has flourished in Kabul, helping countless women help themselves, all while finding herself an Afghan husband, funding her beauty school, and still maintaining her ties to the West. Rodriguez is such an interesting and bold guide into this hidden world of women in a Muslim land.
Both of these novels are fascinating glimpses into a different culture, dictated by religion, as told by and for women. Oddly, I listened to both of these titles - and both have fantastically narration, which I think strengthened my bond with these women and their stories. It is always a more personal experience when it's story TELLING, instead of story READING. Inside the Kingdom is narrated by Iranian actress (and Oscar award nominee) Shohreh Aghdashloo and Kabul Beauty School is narrated by Bernadette Dunne, both of whom do a great job of evoking their author’s voices.
If you enjoy these titles, you may also enjoy A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (fiction), Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (nonfiction), Leap of Faith by Queen Noor of Jordan (biography), The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (nonfiction), or The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther (fiction).
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