I Killed Scheherazade - Softcover

Haddad, Joumana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1569768404 ISBN 13: 9781569768402

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2011

Synopsis

Joumana Haddad is angry. She finds the West’s portrayal of Arab women appalling and the image projected by many Middle Eastern women infuriating. “Being an Arab today means you need to be a hypocrite,” Haddad boldly states. “We constantly and obsessively think about sex but dare not talk about it.” In I Killed Scheherazade, Haddad challenges prevalent notions of Arab womanhood and, in the process, shatters the centuries-old stereotype of Scheherazade, the virgin heroine of The Arabian Nights who won the king’s affections. Fiery and candid, this provocative exploration of what it means to be an Arab woman today will enlighten and inform a new international feminism.

About this title

About the Author:

Joumana Haddad is an award-winning poet, translator, magazine publisher, and journalist. Cultural editor for an Arab newspaper, in 2008 she launched the Arab world's first erotic cultural magazine, Jasad (Body), which made international headlines and caused her to be dubbed "the Carrie Bradshaw of Beirut." She lives in Lebanon.

Review:

"A very courageous and illuminating book about women in the Arab world. It opens our eyes, destroys our prejudices and is very entertaining."  —Mario Vargas Llosa, author and Nobel Laureate

"I Killed Scheherazade . . . is many things: a coming-of-age memoir, a sexual polemic and a spirited call to Arab women to stand up for themselves. There is something in it for Western women, too. . . . The fate of the honor-killed, acid-scarred, burqa-bound Arab female has implications for the status of women worldwide."  —New York Times Magazine

"Provocative and sensual."  —Huffington Post

"Whether defending her choice to speak frankly about sex or pointing a finger at Arab institutions for creating a culture of deceit and regression, [Haddad] exhorts fellow Arab women to challenge preset patterns of religion, culture, and sexuality. The time has come, she says, for women to think for themselves. She certainly does."  —Booklist

"Beirut's body language pioneer."  —Washington Post

"It takes genius to attain such radical freedom."  —Etel Adnan

"A provocative new book [that] lifts the veil on love, sex--and what the 'Arab Spring' really means for women."  —Marie Claire

"In this courageous book Joumana Haddad breaks down the taboo of the Silent Absent Arab Woman. Scheherazade has to die to be able to speak her true self, to tell her own story: that is, to become a human being."  —Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature

About this edition

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1569768404
• ISBN 13: 9781569768402
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160