Unveiled: How an American Woman Found Her Way Through Politics, Love, and Obedience in the Middle East

By Deborah Kanafani

Book 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743291840
• ISBN13: 9780743291842
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Memoir Masterpiece

Deborah Kanafani writes a powerful and touching memoir about loss and identity; feminism and third world politics. With beauty and tenderness she explores her micro family dynamics and how they coincided with macro world politics. A true pleasure to read.

A magnificent tale

Impressive and intelligent, a great tale vivid and absorbing. It's a richly detailed and sympathetic biography,self evidently powerful true and moving. I highly recommend that book I read it in one evening it's quite gripping.

excellent and compelling

I couldn't put this book down. I had heard the same thing from several other people and I was not in the least disappointed. There are probably very few Americans that have had the access this author has. After losing cutody of her children she could have left the difficult conditions she was living in but she chose to stay. I admire her sacrifice, her ability to look beyond her personal problems and her openess in sharing her difficult story. I was fascinated by the wives of the arab leaders who shared their life stories with her and the work she did with many Palestinians and Isrealis who are working for peace. She shows us a side of life in the Middle East we could never see in the news.

I was fascinated

What an amazing journey this author takes you on. I didn't want the book to end. it was easy to read and was full of characters that I would certainly never have the chance to meet in my life. I would have never known the behind the scenes stories of Queens, First Ladies and other brave women who seemingly trusted the author enough to tell their stories to her. Her own story was fascinating as well, she took the circumstances she knew she couldn't change and made the best of them, trying to help the others around her. The first hand stories she tells of her work with Palestinians and Israelis was certainly eye opening.

great read

I loved the style of this book, very visual and always left feeling like you want to know what happens next. I think it was well structured. It starts out like a fairy tale and after she loses everything , is able to pick up the pieces and find her way. I found the book to be very inspirational as well as informative about the MIddle East conflict.