Palestine, menopausal? Can a women’s condition called ‘change of life’ afflict a nation-in-the-making? Suad Amiry’s wacky, irreverent, unmistakably political account links the state of Palestine to the lives of ten women for whom Palestine—or its absence—was the centrifugal force around which their lives revolved. For 40 years, from the 1967 war till Hamas’ victory in 2006, the women in this book shared a past and unfulfilled dreams and aspirations. With that victory, however, they now mourn the loss of a diverse Arab culture, of secularism and pluralism, and their replacement by what Amiry calls ‘local nationalism’ and ‘global religious fundamentalism’. Amiry recalls the social and political history of Palestine ‘through the lives of my PLO women’s generation’, in what can only be called a personal-political tour de force.
