Jean Said Makdisi
Teta, Mother, and Me
Three Generations of Arab Women
Rich in warmth and insight, a personal and cultural history of three generations of Arab women.
In this "beautifully written memoir" (Publishers Weekly), Jean Said Makdisi illuminates a century of Arab life and history through the stories of her mother, Hilda Musa Said, and her Teta, "Granny" Munira Badr Musa. Against the backdrop of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Arab nationalism, the founding of Israel, the Suez crisis, the Arab-Israeli wars, and civil war in Beirut, she reveals the extraordinary courage of these ordinary women, while rethinking the notions of "traditional" and "modern," "East" and "West." With a loving eye, acute intelligence, and elegant, impassioned prose, Makdisi has written "much more than a memoir," rather "an embrace of history and culture" (Cleveland Plain Dealer). 16 pages of illustrations.
"Makdisi's wrestlings with the question of how to balance the drive for harmonious home life with a deeper engagement in the outside world are sharp and insightful—but offer no easy answers."—Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor
Jean Said Makdisi was born in Jerusalem and studied in Cairo and the United States. She is the author of Beirut Fragments: A War Memoir, a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in Beirut.
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