Nine Parts of Desire - Geraldine Brooks

Written by Geraldine Brooks
Read by Geraldine brooks
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 128 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Bolinda Publishing 2012
Length: 10 hours 13 min

The Hidden World of Islamic Women by the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Geraldine Brooks. This captivating book analyzes how the religious oppression towards women in Islam culture has been distorted in many ways.

Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women is the story of Brooks’ intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. In fundamentalist Iran, Brooks finagles an invitation to tea with the ayatollah’s widow-and discovers that Mrs. Khomeini dyes her hair.

In Saudi Arabia, she eludes the severe segregation of the sexes and attends a bacchanal, laying bare the hypocrisy of this austere, male-dominated society. In war-torn Ethiopia, she watches as a female gynecologist repairs women who have undergone genital mutilation justified by a distorted interpretation of Islam.

In villages and capitals throughout the Middle East, she finds that a feminism of sorts has flowered under the forbidding shroud of the chador as she makes other startling discoveries that defy our stereotypes about the Muslim world. Nine Parts of Desire is much more than a captivating work of firsthand reportage; it is also an acute analysis of the world’s fastest-growing religion, deftly illustrating how Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify the repression of women. It was, after all, the Shiite leader Ali who proclaimed that “God created sexual desire in ten parts, then gave nine parts to women.”

Australian writer Geraldine Brooks is now known internationally for her bestselling novels, but as a foreign correspondent, Geraldine spent six years covering the Middle East. When her poised and sophisticated assistant at the Cairo bureau of the Wall Street Journal suddenly ‘adopted the uniform of a Muslim fundamentalist’, Geraldine Brooks set out to discover the truth about women and Islam.