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A review by thuhufa
Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son by Homeira Qaderi
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
“I heard that they’ve asked you about your mother and that you cried when told your mother is dead. Do not believe them. I haven’t died. I’m living a life of exile in a place that has its own beauty, it’s own laws, and it’s own problems. But to my eternal pain it does not have the most important element of my being, of my soul - it does not have you.”
I hadn’t heard of Homeira Qaderi until I read this book. Her pen flows with beautiful prose, almost too beautiful to be describing harrowing circumstances; with love for a son she’s estranged from at the time of writing this book; and a story about a life lived under numerous occupations, varying forms of oppression and brutality and as is so often the case with political, social and theological forms of oppression, various forms of the patriarchy.
Qaderi has a captivating voice throughout most of the book, and is able to transport you a time and place filled with nostalgia in the vein of Susan Abulhawa and Nawal el Saadawi. You don’t just read this book, you live in it. The anxiety of being caught by the Taliban, the infuriating hopelessness of being resigned to the fate of living almost as captors of one half of the society, the joy in the smallest things, the normalcy of war, the warm tingling of first love - you feel it all and more.
However, towards the end of the book, I felt this magic start to wear off. The ending itself felt cut short and the same tone that I loved in the many chapters before, did not last through to the last few. It felt like the ending was decided and we were rushing to it. As always with personal stories and memoirs, it is hard to criticise this without criticising a life lived. But I wish there was a rounder ending to this journey she took us on, or at least a forecasting to the future.
Having said all this, this was a great book I would recommend to anyone!
I hadn’t heard of Homeira Qaderi until I read this book. Her pen flows with beautiful prose, almost too beautiful to be describing harrowing circumstances; with love for a son she’s estranged from at the time of writing this book; and a story about a life lived under numerous occupations, varying forms of oppression and brutality and as is so often the case with political, social and theological forms of oppression, various forms of the patriarchy.
Qaderi has a captivating voice throughout most of the book, and is able to transport you a time and place filled with nostalgia in the vein of Susan Abulhawa and Nawal el Saadawi. You don’t just read this book, you live in it. The anxiety of being caught by the Taliban, the infuriating hopelessness of being resigned to the fate of living almost as captors of one half of the society, the joy in the smallest things, the normalcy of war, the warm tingling of first love - you feel it all and more.
However, towards the end of the book, I felt this magic start to wear off. The ending itself felt cut short and the same tone that I loved in the many chapters before, did not last through to the last few. It felt like the ending was decided and we were rushing to it. As always with personal stories and memoirs, it is hard to criticise this without criticising a life lived. But I wish there was a rounder ending to this journey she took us on, or at least a forecasting to the future.
Having said all this, this was a great book I would recommend to anyone!