Dancing in the Mosque

Dancing In The Mosque is an incredible memoir of perseverance and emotional strength. Homeira Qaderi has given up absolutely everything, including her own very young son, in order to fight for Afghan women's rights and, through reading this searingly personal memoir, I feel I understand a little of what this woman has been through and what drives her. The book is written as a chronological memoir, with chapters interspersed with Qaderi's intensely poignant letter to her son, Siawash, who remained with her husband in Afghanistan. Afghan law doesn't recognise women's rights to even see their children if the father doesn't wish it and, despite long drawn-out legal proceedings, mother and son have been kept apart for years. Siawash has even been told his mother died.

Qaderi portrays Afghan life over several decades from Russian to Taliban oppression, showing how the Afghan people themselves have been pushed from pillar to post for years without any opportunity to determine their own lives. Swapping one set of men with guns for another set and then another. I cannot imagine the mental strength it would take to set oneself against a regime as Qaderi did. Despite my disagreeing with her grandmother's admonishments to knuckle down and accept patriarchal customs regardless of their unfairness, I could see why the older woman could think this way. She could stomach the repression and was, at least, alive to tell the tale. Qaderi took the opposite approach though, choosing as a teenager to teach literacy to refugee girls in direct defiance to Taliban edicts. She is an inspirational woman whose memoir I highly recommend to women everywhere.