historical

I saw the Court-TV production of CHASING FREEDOM this past Monday (Jan 19). Appropriately, it aired on Martin Luther King Day. It was the story of an Afghan women who fled to the US after escaping horrible treatment by the Taliban. When she came to the US, she was put into detention. It was a great movie and it really brought to life events in Afghanistan and also in US detention centers. The story told in BEHIND THE BURQA is very similar. I can't believe our country is still imprisoning people fleeing persecution. This book (BEHIND THE BURQA) was an amazing experience to read. The suspense was incredible, and I learned about detention in a very vivid way. I recommend the book to anyone who wants to find out more about this very important issue, and to everyone who wants to read a great book!!

This book is a powerful account of two brave sisters and their fight for human rights in a fundamentalist society, both for themselves and for other Afghan women. The two sisters hold divergent views of Islam and between them, create a balanced perspective that helped me sort out the true religion from the corruption of the religion by fanatics. As a feminist with a strong interest in world religions, I felt I got a fair insight into the many ways one can regard Islam. It's rare for a book to combine chair-gripping suspense and important new insights and I highly recommend BEHIND THE BURQA to people of both genders and all religious backgrounds and affiliations.

I picked up this book because I have great respect for Batya Swift Yasgur not because I was interested in the subject. I planned to skim it. I started reading at 9 pm and finished it in the wee hours of the next day. To my surprise it was a page turner. It was also well written which is often not the case with "as told to books" and the subject became fascinating to me.
I learned a great deal and only wish that she had another book on the shelves!