Overview
In the early 1980s, Deborah Jacobs was an ordinary Lebanese American college student from Long Island, New York. By the end of the decade, she would bear witness to the making of international history. Her story begins in graduate school: through a series of chance encounters, young Deborah was introduced to Marwan Kanafani, a dashing former soccer star turned high-ranking Palestinian diplomat who was working at the United Nations. A political dynamo with movie-star charm, Marwan swept Deborah off her feet and into a marriage that kept her in the company of diplomats, dignitaries, world leaders, international glamour and intrigue. Although exciting, this lifestyle also isolated Deborah increasingly from her independent, American way of living, creating a rift that would end their marriage.
Marwan's profile was on the rise, and with it came a number of crucial connections for Deborah: while his involvement with the PLO intensified, eventually resulting in his appointment as senior advisor and spokesperson for Yasir Arafat, she formed friendships with such women as Suha Arafat, Queen Dina of Jordan, and other women married to Arab leaders.
After her divorce, when these women agreed to tell their stories of struggle and survival for a book, Deborah traveled to the Middle East to record them, planning to join her children, who were on the West Bank visiting their father. To her shock and horror, he refused to return the children to her.
Deborah stayed in the Middle East for several years to be near her children, finding strength in the women whose lives she documented and whose incredible stories are told in this book. She was eventually able to arrange the return of her children when they were evacuated to another country during a Palestinian uprising. The story of her journey, intertwined with those of the wives of the Arab leaders, takes the reader into an otherwise inaccessible and cloistered world populated by larger-than-life characters living out all-too-human dramas.
Culture, politics, and family collide in this gripping front-row perspective of the Middle East conflict and of the courageous women working behind the scenes for peace and challenging the patriarchal traditions of their homeland.
Synopsis
In the early 1980s, Deborah Jacobs was an ordinary Lebanese American college student from Long Island, New York. By the end of the decade, she would bear witness to the making of international history. Her story begins in graduate school: through a series of chance encounters, young Deborah was introduced to Marwan Kanafani, a dashing former soccer star turned high-ranking Palestinian diplomat who was working at the United Nations. A political dynamo with movie-star charm, Marwan swept Deborah off her feet and into a marriage that kept her in the company of diplomats, dignitaries, world leaders, international glamour and intrigue. Although exciting, this lifestyle also isolated Deborah increasingly from her independent, American way of living, creating a rift that would end their marriage.
Marwan's profile was on the rise, and with it came a number of crucial connections for Deborah: while his involvement with the PLO intensified, eventually resulting in his appointment as senior advisor and spokesperson for Yasir Arafat, she formed friendships with such women as Suha Arafat, Queen Dina of Jordan, and other women married to Arab leaders.
After her divorce, when these women agreed to tell their stories of struggle and survival for a book, Deborah traveled to the Middle East to record them, planning to join her children, who were on the West Bank visiting their father. To her shock and horror, he refused to return the children to her.
Deborah stayed in the Middle East for several years to be near her children, finding strength in the women whose lives she documented and whose incredible stories are told in this book. She was eventually able to arrange the return of her children when they were evacuated to another country during a Palestinian uprising. The story of her journey, intertwined with those of the wives of the Arab leaders, takes the reader into an otherwise inaccessible and cloistered world populated by larger-than-life characters living out all-too-human dramas.
Culture, politics, and family collide in this gripping front-row perspective of the Middle East conflict and of the courageous women working behind the scenes for peace and challenging the patriarchal traditions of their homeland.
Publishers Weekly
This uneven memoir frustrates and fascinates, as Kanafani appears to find the lives of others more interesting than her own. The surprising result: passages in which Kanafani's description of events as dramatic as falling for a prince on a cross-Atlantic voyage and watching her father go to prison for business irregularities (that are never disclosed) come across as mildly tedious. Fortunately, the tales she relates of Palestinian politics, Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and Arab women bucking tradition to struggle for social justice are captivating. The author sees that both her father and her ex-husband, former Yasser Arafat adviser Marwan Kanafani, were controlling and abusive, but fails to consider why her relationship with the former may have led to her bond with the latter, and only rarely intimates what these love-hate relationships meant for her. Writing of a new friend, she says, "I wanted to tell her that I was strong and independent too; I wanted to whisper this great secret to her, but I couldn't let Marwan hear me." Ultimately, Kanafani's curiosity about others and the surprising details she reveals about lesser-known topics such as Islamic marriage law or details of Yasser Arafat's marriage are worth the effort, but the payoff is a long time coming. (Jan. 8)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationEditorials
Publishers Weekly
This uneven memoir frustrates and fascinates, as Kanafani appears to find the lives of others more interesting than her own. The surprising result: passages in which Kanafani's description of events as dramatic as falling for a prince on a cross-Atlantic voyage and watching her father go to prison for business irregularities (that are never disclosed) come across as mildly tedious. Fortunately, the tales she relates of Palestinian politics, Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and Arab women bucking tradition to struggle for social justice are captivating. The author sees that both her father and her ex-husband, former Yasser Arafat adviser Marwan Kanafani, were controlling and abusive, but fails to consider why her relationship with the former may have led to her bond with the latter, and only rarely intimates what these love-hate relationships meant for her. Writing of a new friend, she says, "I wanted to tell her that I was strong and independent too; I wanted to whisper this great secret to her, but I couldn't let Marwan hear me." Ultimately, Kanafani's curiosity about others and the surprising details she reveals about lesser-known topics such as Islamic marriage law or details of Yasser Arafat's marriage are worth the effort, but the payoff is a long time coming. (Jan. 8)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationKirkus Reviews
A Lebanese-American woman falls in love with a Palestinian activist, and starry-eyed romance gives way to disappointment, culture clash and a custody battle. Like Betty Mahmoody, whose Not Without My Daughter (1991) anticipates much of this story, Kanafani labored valiantly to follow the cultural norms of her newfound home-at least for a while. She had been smitten by Marwan Kanafani, the soccer star turned PLO advisor: "Marwan was the axis around whom everyone else revolved," she writes of their first meeting, "and he commanded the attention of our entire group, expounding on everything from politics to religion." He continues to expound as their marriage comes undone a scant 30 pages later. Fortunately for him, her husband had other audiences: "As our relationship grew more distant, Marwan's relationship with Arafat grew stronger." When the author asked for custody of the children, her husband's negative response was the final word, softened only years later, after the Intifada of 2000 made life on the West Bank dangerous (and even then, the children left only after Marwan's new wife put them on a plane). All this drama is actually fairly undramatic. The worthier section is the author's account of the Palestinians and Arab women she met along the way, many of whom work toward some vision of equality and, in many cases, are activists for peace as well as for women's issues. She notes that Arafat's brother Fathi was an activist at well, arranging midnight salons at which Israelis and Palestinians met, ate and talked through the night. "Everyone was eager to accept," she writes, "scientists, doctors, teachers, artists, filmmakers, musicians. . . . As they shared ideas, people who had beenperceived as enemies became human beings."Conspiracy theorists will find her notes on the fate of Arafat and his inner circle to be of interest, but otherwise this is pretty thin gruel. Agent: Gail Ross/Gail Ross Literary AgencyFrom the Publisher
"Deborah Kanafani mesmerizes with her words and personality; her personal experience is a gift of enlightenment. Her firsthand account of a world we know so little about is straightforward, intriguing, and infused with the sweetness and the agony of life itself. Once you open the book, you will not put it down." — Dr. Aida Takla O'Reilly, President Emerita, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Golden Globe Awards"Much of this remarkable story takes place in parts of the world many of us will never see, but its essential geography is familiar to us all: the hardscrabble landscape of the heart, the longing for love, the disappointment when it fails, the stubborn optimism that impels a person to collect the pieces and soldier on, the fearless resolve of parenthood. Debbie Kanafani's courage is palpable, whether when fighting for her children or in standing up to the powerful men in her way. The unadorned honesty of her writing is luminescent, eminently accessible, and impossible to forget." — Ernest Thompson, Oscar-winning screenwriter of On Golden Pond
"Deborah Kanafani sheds light on a region that remains mysterious today, with an amazing personal journey that brings out the contrasts as well as the similarities between East and West. Her electrifying experiences entertain us, and her unique access to a cloistered world enriches us." — Carlotta Pardini, Ambassador-at-Large, Republic of Panama
"Deborah Kanafani's rare access to the Middle East provides an insightful portrayal of a region in great need of understanding. Her book is a gripping account of Middle East politics, parental sacrifice, and the compelling stories of unforgettable heroines." — Bianca Jagger, human rights advocate
"Kanafani's writing is graceful, her story poignant, her message essential for all of us who care about Palestinian-Israeli relations. Unveiled is a riveting account of human courage: the courage of a mother to retrieve her children, the courage of women to determine their future (in Arab society), and the courage of ordinary people to build peace in the face of militancy, occupation, and despair. It is a story of personal struggle to hold on to what matters most." — Ronit Avni, Founder and Executive Director of Just Vision, an organization promoting Israeli and Palestinian peace building, and producer of Encounter Point