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Book's Description
With her bestseller, Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep, Siba Shakib drew attention to the distressing situation of Afghan women. Taking up this theme again, she now tells a wonderful story of love and courage, and of a remarkable woman who finds her own path in life. When the young girl, Samira, is born, her father - a brave commander fighting in the mountainous land of Afghanistan - decides to bring her up as a boy known as Samir. Soon the fact that Samir is really a girl has been forgotten. Samir learns to fight, ride and shoot, and when her father is killed, she becomes head of the family. However, as an adult, Samir's love for the friend of her youth forces her to confess the truth. She wants to live as Bashir's wife but in return she must reveal her female identity and, in so doing, give up her freedom. Samira follows her heart but she hates wearing the veil. Eventually the torment is too great and Samira realises there has to be a third way for her - the way of a self-confident woman who bravely takes charge of her own life...
Customer Reviews
Not just about gender roles in Afghanistan ,13/05/2006
It would be easy to read this book simply as further evidence of the damage caused by gender constrained roles in certain Islamic societies. To do so, though, would diminish the story.
What makes this story special is the impact of choice, and individual spirit.
Is Samira a victim, or is she triumphant? Do the lessons she teaches others as Samir, about bravery and about confidence provide them with options? Is Samira ultimately the only person able to soar free of certain cultural restraints or can others do it as well?
It is this hope, this possibility that enables the story to finish on a positive note. Wherever Samira is, and whatever she does, she has had the confidence to move beyond traditional roles.
Read the book, and decide for yourself.
Highly recommended.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
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Samira?Samir?Samira? -Monotony sets in. ,08/12/2007
I found this book extremely disappointing and dull. The style of writing was a rather unconventional narrative, but unfortunately I don't think it worked out, instead it just rambled, and flitted from one person to the next, almost like a middle-school essay. It was quite obvious that the author wanted shed some light on a few issues regarding afghan society, which she thinly disguised as a novel/biography, practically spelling out the issues for the reader. After the 3rd chapter, I found the writing very monotonous, with continuous use of the same phrases. The only reason I finished the book was because I kept waiting for something to happen. However, I felt as if perhaps, the author was given x amount of words, waffled on throughout the book, trying to be poetic and had to cram as much into the ending as possible, without making much of an impact. I wouldn't recommend this book.
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Loved This book ,12/10/2006
This book was a very good read. I was enticed in the book from the moment i started it to the moment i put it down.
It is a story about a father who wants a boy so desperately that he bring up his first child a girl' as a boy. Her parents didn't have anymore children, so her father continue to treat Samira as a boy and taught her to fight, ride horses, shoot and many more men tasks. This is a very difficult senario to be in for Samira/Samir and the older she got the more difficult it became for her. Her father didn't have to bear the affects of this, as he died when Samira was still a child. It only became difficult when she fell in love with a friend that she realised that the effects of being a girl will change her future. The problems arised when the girl started developing into a female that her destinity had to be changed and only Samira on her own had to decide what she wanted to be at the time and what she wanted to become in the future.
Samira showed courage, strength and showed those people that identify women as weak that they can be as strong as men are. Samira became her mother's strength and she became her grandfathers missing arm. She wasn't scared and dealt and acted as men did naturally and found it difficult to behave as a real women when she really had to try too for her love of her friend who became her husband.
It is one of the best books i have read and the style of writing is very diffent, but good.
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