Three Mothers, Three Daughters: Palestinian Women's Stories (Literature of the Middle East)

Some experiences are so basic to women that we expect similarities. But the six Palestinian mothers and daughters who talk of their lives here may throw many Western reference points askew. One raised children in a refugee camp after her village was destroyed and paid dearly for the violent politics this fostered in them. All are marked by a society that preaches female inferiority and work not softened by modern conveniences. Among the older women, the rigors of bearing child after child are unfamiliar to most of us--and even to their daughters, whose lives reflect seesawing social changes in the conflict-ridden Middle East. These very differences, though, are what makes their stories fascinating.