Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
A People Book of the Week & a Kirkus Best Nonfiction of the Year
An exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother’s unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In the days before Homeira Qaderi gave birth to her son, Siawash, the road to the hospital in Kabul would often be barricaded because of the frequent suicide explosions. With the city and the military on edge, it was not uncommon for an armed soldier to point his gun at the pregnant woman’s bulging stomach, terrified that she was hiding a bomb. Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for her soon-to-be-born child, Homeira walked through blood and wreckage to reach the hospital doors. But the joy of her beautiful son’s birth was soon overshadowed by other dangers that would threaten her life.
No ordinary Afghan woman, Homeira refused to cower under the strictures of a misogynistic social order. Defying the law, she risked her freedom to teach children reading and writing and fought for women’s rights in her theocratic and patriarchal society.
Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother’s searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity.
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Homeira Qaderi. (2020). Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Homeira Qaderi. 2020. Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Homeira Qaderi, Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son. HarperCollins, 2020.
MLA Citation (style guide)Homeira Qaderi. Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother's Letter to Her Son. HarperCollins, 2020.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 3 | 3 |
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Dr. Homeira Qaderi is a women's rights activist originally from Afghanistan. She has published six books in Afghanistan and Iran, some of which have received prestigious awards. Dancing in the Mosque is her first book in English.
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A People Book of the Week & a Kirkus Best Nonfiction of the Year
An exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother’s unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In the days before Homeira Qaderi gave birth to her son, Siawash, the road to the hospital in Kabul would often be barricaded because of the frequent suicide explosions. With the city and the military on edge, it was not uncommon for an armed soldier to point his gun at the pregnant woman’s bulging stomach, terrified that she was hiding a bomb. Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for her soon-to-be-born child, Homeira walked through blood and wreckage to reach the hospital doors. But the joy of her beautiful son’s birth was soon overshadowed by other dangers that would threaten her life.
No ordinary Afghan woman, Homeira refused to cower under the strictures of a misogynistic social order. Defying the law, she risked her freedom to teach children reading and writing and fought for women’s rights in her theocratic and patriarchal society.
Devastating in its power, Dancing in the Mosque is a mother’s searing letter to a son she was forced to leave behind. In telling her story—and that of Afghan women—Homeira challenges you to reconsider the meaning of motherhood, sacrifice, and survival. Her story asks you to consider the lengths you would go to protect yourself, your family, and your dignity.
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"How does a girl grow to be a woman in a society that shuts off every opportunity? How does a mother choose between her child and the future, not just her future but that of the women of Afghanistan? Homeira Qaderi answers these impossible questions in her stunning memoir, Dancing in the Mosque—one of the most moving love letters to life itself that you will ever read." — Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Last Train to London
"A stunning reminder that stories and words are what sustain us, even—and perhaps especially—under the most frightening circumstances." — New York Times
"An unvarnished, memorable portrayal of a mother's grief and love." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Best of the year 2020, Nonfiction
"A heartrending, indelible tale." — People
"Dancing in the Mosque is a remarkable story of great strength, perseverance, and personal sacrifice by a woman selflessly working to advance the rights of women in her homeland of Afghanistan, women and girls who yearn to be free. I so admire Homeira Qaderi's writing, but even more her courage. I wept when I read the words, " in this land, it is better to be a stone than a girl." Thank you, Homeira, for telling a story that everyone needs to read." — Deborah Rodriquez, author of New York Times bestseller The Kabul Beauty School and Little Coffee Shop in Kabul
"A modern-day Sophie's Choice, this memoir about a mother's love for her child and country is heartbreaking, but also triumphantly hopeful and inspiring. Thank God for courageous women like Homeira Qaderi." — Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Secrets Between Us
"'God never answers the prayers of girls,' the Afghan writer Homeira Qaderi was told when the Taliban invaded her native city of Herat. But her new book, Dancing in the Mosque, is a kind of answered prayer born of her courage, indomitable will, and storytelling gifts. In this remarkable blend of memoir and anguished letter in exile to a son she cannot see, Qaderi reminds us that the pen is mightier than the sword, especially when it is in the hands of a writer who invites her readers to dance in the mosque." — Christopher Merrill, author of Self-Portrait with Dogwood
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July 1, 2020
In Taliban-bound Afghanistan, Qaderi risked her freedom to teach children and fight for women's rights. But as she was planning to attend the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2015, her husband divorced her, forcing her to leave without her son. With a 50,000-copy first printing.
Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Starred review from October 1, 2020
A powerful narrative of a life marked by courage and despair. In a riveting memoir, Qaderi recounts her life story for the son she left behind in Afghanistan. When she refused to accept her husband's taking a second wife, he divorced her, taking away their 19-month-old child. "Every day I regret my decision to leave you," she writes in a moving testimony to her love. The author was a young girl during the brutal Russian occupation of Afghanistan; two years after the Russians left in 1989, the Taliban rose to power. Suddenly streets were filled with "young men with beards and long hair and kohl eyeliner...tall and thin as if they had been starved for years." They instituted Sharia law, closed girls schools, and forbade reading; those who disobeyed were publicly whipped or worse. Describing herself as a troublemaker, Qaderi rebelled, daring to home-school girls when she was 13 and soon secretly teaching girls, boys, and even two young members of the Taliban within a mosque. It was there that one of her students taught her to dance--at the risk of all their lives. Boldly, Qaderi managed to set up a writing class under the guise of learning needlework. Merely being female made her physically vulnerable. She was twice sexually harassed, once by a lewd religious leader. Taliban men often forced young girls to marry them, a fate she feared. At the age of 17, her family considered her lucky to marry a local man, and she was taken to live with his family in Tehran. There, women's freedom amazed her. "In Iran," she writes, "a good woman could be an independent and educated woman." Married for 15 years to a husband she grew to love, and who supported her accomplishments, she was shocked when, after they returned to Kabul, he announced that he would take another wife--an act she could not abide. An unvarnished, memorable portrayal of a mother's grief and love.COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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A People Book of the Week & a Kirkus Best Nonfiction of the Year
An exquisite and inspiring memoir about one mother’s unimaginable choice in the face of oppression and abuse in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.
In the days before Homeira Qaderi gave birth to her son, Siawash, the road to the hospital in Kabul would often be barricaded because of the frequent suicide explosions. With the city and the military on edge, it was not uncommon for an armed soldier to point his gun at the pregnant woman’s bulging stomach, terrified that she was hiding a bomb. Frightened and in pain, she was once forced to make her way on foot. Propelled by the love she held for her soon-to-be-born child, Homeira walked through blood and wreckage to reach the hospital doors. But the joy of her beautiful son’s birth was soon overshadowed by other dangers that would threaten her life.
No ordinary...
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