Bestselling author, Jean Sasson tells the dramatic true story of a young woman caught up in Saddam Hussein's genocide of the Kurdish people of Iraq. One morning Joanna, a young bride living in the Kurdish mountains of Iraq, was surprised to see dead birds drop silently out of the clear sky. They were followed by sinister canisters falling to the ground, bringing fear and death. It was 1987, and Saddam Hussein had ordered his cousin 'Chemical Ali' to bombard Joanna's village, Bergalou, with chemical weapons. Temporarily blinded in the attack, Joanna was rescued by her husband, a Kurdish freedom fighter. After being caught in another bombardment and left for dead in the rubble, they managed to flee over the mountains in a harrowing escape. Now living in the UK and working for British Airways, Joanna has told the story of her eventful life to Jean Sasson, the bestselling chronicler of oppressed women's lives in the Princess trilogy and Mayada. "Love in a Torn Land" is published while the world watches the trial of the notorious 'Chemical Ali', Saddam Hussein's most bloodthirsty henchman, for crimes including the genocide of the Kurdish people.
La biografía novelada de una guerrillera kurda comprometida con la lucha por la libertad. Hija de madre kurda y padre iraquí, Joanna lleva una existencia modesta en Bagdad hasta que Saddam Hussein llega al poder y empieza la discriminacion hacia los kurdos. Enamorada de un guerrillero kurdo, Joanna se traslada a Kurdistan, donde viven juntos la persecucion y la miseria. Al final, Joanna debera escoger entre el amor por su marido o darle a su hijo una vida en libertad. Un libro apasionado que presenta las injusticias y el genocidio a que se ha visto sometido el pueblo kurdo, a la vez que relata la desgarradora vivencia de una mujer que por amor lo dejo todo... hasta casi perderlo todo.
From the time she was a little girl, Maryam rebelled against the terrible second-class existence that was her destiny as an Afghan woman. She had witnessed the miserable fate of her grandmother and three aunts, and wished she had been born a boy. As a feisty teenager in Kabul, she was outraged when the Russians invaded her country. After she made a public show of defiance, she had to flee the country for her life. A new life of freedom seemed within her grasp,but her father arranged a traditional marriage to a fellow Afghan, who turned out to be a violent man. Beaten, raped and abused, Maryam found joy in the birth of a baby son. But then her brutal husband stole him away far beyond his mother's reach. For many long years she searched for her lost son, while civil war and Taliban oppression raged back home in Afghanistan. Set against a landscape littered with tragic tales of horrific suffering, Jean Sasson, author of Princess, chronicles the story of one resolute but tormented woman determined to achieve freedom and equality with men.
Este libro es un retrato aún más intenso, si cabe, de una sociedad represora que humilla y prácticamente esclaviza a las mujeres. Un retrato tan estremecedor y de tan hondo contenido humano que ningún lector permanecera impasible ante sus paginas.
Tras las valientes revelacaiones de Sultana, el libro en que la princesa contaba su calvario personal, Jean Sasson relata aquí la dramática encrucijada que afrontan las hijas de Sultana, la misma que padecen miles de adolescentes saudies
La terrible experiencia vivida por Mayada, una irakí de buena familia, arroja nueva luz sobre las condiciones de vida de las mujeres bajo la férrea dictadura de aquel país. La autora del libro conocio a Mayada en uno de sus viajes, y desde entonces entre ellas se consolido una amistad que ha fructificado en este excelente libro. De repente, Jean Sasson dejo de tener noticias de Mayada, quien le escribia asiduamente contandole las atrocidades del regimen de Sadam. Al fin se entero de que Mayada habia estado en prision, y que finalmente habia logrado huir a Jordania. La obra relata las peripecias de una mujer valiente y lucida, y describe su experiencia de carcel, torturas y vejaciones junto a otras diecisiete desafortunadas, a las que llama mujeres-sombra. Un hermoso alegato a favor de la libertad, el coraje y la amistad.
