6/25/2023 0 Comments Novel a woman is no man![]() There is an anonymity to this “I” who opens Rum’s novel, which implies a universality to her story, even as she tells the reader, “You’ve never heard this story before. The story opens with a first-person narrator introducing the reader to her Brooklyn neighborhood, but the narrative promptly jumps to Palestine twenty-or-so years before. ![]() The psychological realism at the heart of Rum’s novel thrusts the reader into the inner lives of these women and makes their experiences that much more powerful. Fareeda, Isra, and Deya are three generations of women struggling to survive the limited sphere available to traditional Arab women, even ones living in Brooklyn, while navigating the identity conflicts inherent to emigrating from the old world and settling in the West. Set primarily in Brooklyn, New York from the 1990s through the late aughts, Rum’s novel emphasizes the unique challenges of individuals living between wildly different cultures. ![]() Etaf Rum’s A Woman is No Man (2019) reveals the harsh realities facing Palestinian-American women. ![]()
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