An American Bride in Kabul

Name: An American Bride in Kabul
Brand: Tantor Audio
Availability: InStock
Author: Phyllis Chesler, PhD
ISBN: 9781977345875

Author: Phyllis Chesler, PhD

Narrator: Janet Metzger

Unabridged: 10 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/28/2019

Categories: Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Women, Memoirs, Social Science, Women's Studies

Synopsis

Few westerners will ever be able to understand Muslim or Afghan society unless they are part of a Muslim family. Twenty years old and in love, Phyllis Chesler, a Jewish-American girl from Brooklyn, embarked on an adventure that has lasted for more than a half-century. In 1961, when she arrived in Kabul with her Afghan bridegroom, authorities took away her American passport. Chesler was now the property of her husband's family and had no rights of citizenship. Back in Afghanistan, her husband, a wealthy, westernized foreign college student with dreams of reforming his country, reverted to traditional and tribal customs. Chesler found herself unexpectedly trapped in a posh polygamous family, with no chance of escape. She fought against her seclusion and lack of freedom, her Afghan family's attempts to convert her from Judaism to Islam, and her husband's wish to permanently tie her to the country through childbirth. Drawing upon her personal diaries, Chesler recounts her ordeal, the nature of gender apartheid—and her longing to explore this beautiful, ancient, and exotic country and culture. Chesler nearly died there but she managed to get out, returned to her studies in America, and became an author and an ardent activist for women's rights throughout the world.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Talia on October 22, 2013

For Phyllis Chesler, a feminist who helped trailblaze the Second Wave Feminism, the personal is political. In this memoir of events that took place over fifty years ago, Prof. Chesler extracts understanding of pluralism and its limitations when it comes to women’s place in society. In 1961, thirty ye......more

Goodreads review by Deborah on September 12, 2014

Actual rating: 3.5 stars. Partly because, yes, I think some of this was poorly edited, and partly because I don't feel right giving a full four stars to any book that needs a warning label. Like the one I'm giving it right now: Do NOT read this if you're already bummed out. It was stupid of me to pi......more

Goodreads review by Anne on October 07, 2013

I was instantly attracted to this book, although I'll admit that I've not heard of Phyllis Chesler before now. I am fascinated by different cultures and this memoir is particularly relevant at the moment, with debates raging in the media regarding Muslim women's rights to wear the niqab and the burq......more

Goodreads review by Kjersti on July 11, 2013

The story is fascinating: the author married an Afghan student she went to college with in New York in the early 1960s. They both loved French New Wave films, New York theater, and other intellectual, highbrow stuff. She married him when she was 20 so she could travel with him to Afghanistan and mee......more

Goodreads review by RYCJ on September 08, 2013

The pacing is 'interestingly' fantastic, although, and irrespective of how one might view the subjects covered... a lot of patience may be required to get through reading this book. Starting out things definitely read comfortably memoirish. Phyllis contains the rebellious spirit; breaking away from h......more