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A review by nietzschesghost
The Beekeeper: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Max Weiss, Dunya Mikhail
5.0
Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi-Assyrian poet who is now based in the United States but was born in Iraq and graduated with a BA from the University of Baghdad some years later. She has worked as a journalist and a translator for "The Baghdad Observer", a prominent Iraqi newspaper before being questioned by Saddam Hussein's government and facing increasing threats and harassment from the Iraqi authorities for her writings. As a result of this, and to be able to carry-on enjoying her chosen profession, she fled Iraq via Jordan, eventually settling in America. Mikhail both speaks and writes in Arabic, Assyrian and English. Most of her previous work is classified as poetry including "The War Works Hard" which won PEN's Trnslation Fund Award, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and was named one of the best books of 2005 by the New York Public Library. In 2001, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing.
Wow, and I really mean wow! This is a powerful book. Although the topic is upsetting and opens your eyes up to the cruelty in our world, it was a story that needed to be told and I am so appreciative that Mikhail was the one who chose to do this. Her writing is exquisite. Maybe the most exquisite I have ever come across. If you can read this and keep from becoming an emotional wreck, you are very skilled (or maybe just cold). We are all familiar with the ghastly images and stories of the horrendous things going on in wartorn Syria and most of us probably believe that pictures get the message across better than any other method of communication. That is not the case here, this book not only completely overpowers the television accounts but tells the stories of these women, men, and children in a compassionate and detailed way.
The plight of the Yazidi people makes for uncomfortable but neccessary reading. I feel everyone should be acquiring a copy as the message of hope rather than hopelessness is such an important one. Even if the odds seemed stacked against them these people had hope that endured many lifetimes of heartache and pain. Abdullah, The eponymous beekeeper, used his knowledge of the local terrain in order to smuggle Yazidi women to safety, keeping hope alive for those still missing as well as their relatives. This book goes some way to highlighting what they went through but I don't believe we could truly know or even begin to understand the true unimaginable horror of their experiences.
I am positive that this was as difficult to write as it was for us to read, especially with the authors proximity to the people and the location. As I have made an effort to delve deeper into poetry in the past few years, now that I know the beauty with which Mikhail writes I will be swiftly purchasing and reading "The War Works Hard" as an opening into her wider work and will go from there.
Many thanks to Serpent's Tail for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
Wow, and I really mean wow! This is a powerful book. Although the topic is upsetting and opens your eyes up to the cruelty in our world, it was a story that needed to be told and I am so appreciative that Mikhail was the one who chose to do this. Her writing is exquisite. Maybe the most exquisite I have ever come across. If you can read this and keep from becoming an emotional wreck, you are very skilled (or maybe just cold). We are all familiar with the ghastly images and stories of the horrendous things going on in wartorn Syria and most of us probably believe that pictures get the message across better than any other method of communication. That is not the case here, this book not only completely overpowers the television accounts but tells the stories of these women, men, and children in a compassionate and detailed way.
The plight of the Yazidi people makes for uncomfortable but neccessary reading. I feel everyone should be acquiring a copy as the message of hope rather than hopelessness is such an important one. Even if the odds seemed stacked against them these people had hope that endured many lifetimes of heartache and pain. Abdullah, The eponymous beekeeper, used his knowledge of the local terrain in order to smuggle Yazidi women to safety, keeping hope alive for those still missing as well as their relatives. This book goes some way to highlighting what they went through but I don't believe we could truly know or even begin to understand the true unimaginable horror of their experiences.
I am positive that this was as difficult to write as it was for us to read, especially with the authors proximity to the people and the location. As I have made an effort to delve deeper into poetry in the past few years, now that I know the beauty with which Mikhail writes I will be swiftly purchasing and reading "The War Works Hard" as an opening into her wider work and will go from there.
Many thanks to Serpent's Tail for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.