In Etaf Rum's powerful debut novel, A Woman Is No Man, three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture—a heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue, courage, and betrayal that will resonate with women from all backgrounds, giving voice to the silenced and agency to the oppressed.
Today, we welcome a guest post from author, Etaf Rum.
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I never visited the library when I was growing up. I lived in Brooklyn, New York, less than a mile away from the Brooklyn Public Library, yet my parents, Palestinian immigrants, never took me. I don’t know the precise reason why, but looking back I suspect the library was not the ideal place to take two handfuls of noisy children—I am the eldest of nine. Besides this, my parents did not inhibit my love for reading, and I routinely purchased books from my school catalog, grocery stores, even yard sales.
When I was seven years old, I read Ronald Dahl’s Matilda for the first time. After that, whenever I felt most alone—most desperate to understand myself and the world around me—I always wished I could slip out our front door undetected and wander off to the library as Matilda had, bringing a bundle of new books home with me.
By the time I finally did visit the library, I was a sophomore in high school, and it was for a school project. I remember walking the short blocks to the Brooklyn Library alongside my mother and younger siblings, beaming with the anticipation of what I would find inside this magical place. As soon as we entered the mossy green building, I left my family, wandering around the shelves and scanning the spines of books, in awe and wonder. The library was the dreamiest place I’d ever seen.
It has been a little over a decade since, and now I visit the library daily with my own two children—Reyann, who’s nine, and Isah, who’s six. I’ve raised them in our hometown library, Braswell Memorial Library. The librarians at Braswell Memorial have watched my children grow up, recommending reads along the way. Under their wise tutelage we’ve read everything from Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter to Her Right Foot and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
One day a librarian once asked me why I brought my children to the library so often. I wasn’t certain of the answer at the time. Perhaps I was trying to compensate for all the time I’d lost growing up—all the days I’d wished to wander off to the library in search of answers and couldn’t. Or perhaps it was because I knew that books would teach my children things I could not. Or perhaps I wanted to provide them with a sense of connection and belonging when they felt most alone.
This sense of seeking connection and understanding through stories is a theme I explore in A Woman Is No Man. Like me, my characters grew up in an insular community and felt quite isolated. In my novel books become their companions—granting them a bridge to the outside world and ultimately giving them strength. This is why I spend most days in the library with my children, surrounded by books: I want to teach them that the library is a gathering place of stories, and it is through these stories that we come to understand ourselves and the world.
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Thank you, Etaf! Be sure to download an egalley of A Woman Is No Man now!