Description
Book SynopsisOffers an exploration of the indissoluble link between war and sexuality based on over the years of interviews by the well-known Lebanese expatriate teacher, critic, and writer. This book refers to sexuality as the physical and psychological relations of men and women, and examines Middle Eastern customs involved in defining such relationships.
Trade Review"A courageous analysis of Arab writers, addressing the connections between masculinity, violence, and nationalism." --Robin Morgan, Ms.."Rarely have sexuality and war been treated with such poignancy and historical concreteness ... The force of these often intertwined phenomena endemic to the human condition are considered with incisive and wrenching specificity from within one of the most baneful convergences of sexuality and war in recent history." --Djelal Kadir, editor, World Literature Today."Personal, powerful, passionate, uncensored." --Fedwa Malti-Douglas, The Journal of Women's History.A welcome departure from stereotypical nationalist conceptions from which no solutions to the current impasse can possibly emerge." --Joel Benin, The Middle East Report "Accad's extraordinary pacifism is deeply compelling to women as it is deeply challenging to men." --Andrea Dworkin."A splendid book. Drawing on interviews with Lebanon's village women and her close readings of Lebanon's contemporary novelists, Accad manages to pull back the veil that has shrouded so many conventional nationalisms, revealing their roots in men's effort to control women's sexuality." --Cynthia Enloe, author of Does Khaki Become You?"Extraordinary in weaving together literature, feminist theory, and theories of war and violence. Her analysis of the relationships between sexuality, war, and nationalism is stunning in its frankness and importance." --Berenice A. Carroll, Purdue University."It is in the women's writings on the Lebanese civil war that Accad discerns alternative visions that could shape a non- violent reality." --Miriam Cooke, The Middle East Studies."This book should remind us how patriarchies can operate similarly in societies we most often define through difference ... [Accad's] forthright, critically respectful, caring treatment of Lebanese lives and worlds resonates as we engage with the longterm repercussions of the Gulf War. --Marilyn Booth, Women's Review of Books.
