Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys (National Endowment for the Humanities Award): Points of View

An intelligent and outspoken only child, Satrapi--the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor--bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran: of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life and of the enormous toll repressive regimes exact on the individual spirit. Marjane's child's-eye-view of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution allows us to learn as she does the history of this fascinating country and of her own extraordinary family. Intensely personal, profoundly political, and wholly original, Persepolis is at once a story of growing up and a stunning reminder of the human cost of war and political repression. It shows how we carry on, through laughter and tears, in the face of absurdity. And, finally, it introduces us to an irresistible little girl with whom we cannot help but fall in love.

"I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco..." So begins Fatima Mernissi in the exotic and rich narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. In Dreams of Trespass, Mernissi weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth--women who, deprived of access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination. This book is the provocative story of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex in the recent Muslim world.--Back cover.

"In 2006, Shadid, an Arab-American raised in Oklahoma, was covering Israel's attack on Lebanon when he heard that an Israeli rocket had crashed into the house his great-grandfather built, his family's ancestral home. Not long after, Shadid (who had covered three wars in the Middle East) realized that he had lost his passion for a region that had lost its soul. He had seen too much violence and death; his career had destroyed his marriage. Seeking renewal, he set out to rebuild the house that held his family's past in the town they had helped settle long ago. Although the course of the reconstruction is complicated by craftsmen with too much personality, squabbles with his extended family, and Lebanon's political strife, Shadid is restored along with the house and finds that his understanding of the Middle East, which he had known chiefly in wartime, has been deepened by his immersion in smalltown life. Coming to terms with his family's emigrant experience and their town's history, the "homeless" Shadid finds home and comes to understand the emotions behind the turbulence of the Middle East. In a moving epilogue, Shadid describes returning to this house after a nearly disastrous week as a prisoner of war in Libya along with the first visit of his daughter. Combining the human interest of The Bookseller of Kabul and Three Cups of Tea with the light touch of an expert determined, first, to tell a story, Shadid tells the story of a reconstruction effort that would have sent Frances Mayes to a psychiatric hospital as he brings to life unforgettable characters who lives help explain not just the modern Middle East but the legacy of those who have survived generations of war. He flashes back to his family's loss of home, their suffering during their country's dark days, and their experiences as newcomers in Oklahoma. This is a book about what propels the Middle East's rage, loss of home, and what it must examine and re-find, the sense of shared community. Far surpassing the usual reporter's "tour of duty," books, House of Stone is more humane and compelling and will please students of the region, those whose families have emigrated from other nations, and all readers engaged by engrossing storytelling"-- Provided by publisher.

In the Country of Men captures life in Libya in the wake of Muammar al-Qaddafi's revolution. Through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy named Suleiman, we watch a family struggle for survival in a climate of deadly political suspicion. Against a backdrop of innocent childhood rituals--playing games with his best friends, learning his country's history on visits to the ruins surrounding Tripoli--Suleiman is also awakened to dangers he cannot comprehend. When his father is brutally interrogated and his best friend's father disappears, Suleiman arrives at a crossroads that will shatter his understanding of home and homeland.--From publisher description.

Years after her renowned Pakistani poet father is killed by government thugs and her activist mother disappears, Aasmaani, an employee at Pakistan's first independent television station, begins to receive a series of letters written in her mother's private code.