Donated Book Now Available at Samuels Public Library
Front Royal Women’s Resource Center and Nan Hathaway co-sponsor donations to Samuels Public Library that are by or about women.
Nan Hathaway, Book Donation Sponsor & Coordinator, chooses our books each year. Thank You Nan!
We highlight one of these books each month. Our Book Reviews and Commentaries are provided by JoEllen McNeal. Thank you JoEllen!
War and Me: A Memoir
By Faleeha Hassan
Translated by William Hutchins
From the events I recount in this memoir, you will understand that next to my name in the Unknown World or beside it at the moment I was born, the only comment inscribed must have been: “Faleeha Hassan will coexist with war for most of the years of her life.”
So begins War and Me, an intimate memoir about coming of age in a tight-knit working-class family during Iraq’s seemingly endless series of wars. Faleeha Hassan became intimately acquainted with loss and fear while growing up in Najaf, Iraq. Now, in a deeply personal account of her life, she remembers those she has loved and lost.
As a young woman, Faleeha hated seeing her father and brother go off to fight, and when she needed to reach them, she broke all the rules by traveling alone to the war’s front lines – just one of many shocking and moving examples of her resilient spirit. Later, after building a life in the U.S., she realizes that she will coexist with war for most of the years of her life. To combat the fear, she chooses to focus on education for herself and her children. In a world on fire, she finds courage, compassion, and a voice.
War and Me is a testament to endurance and a window into the unique aspects of life in the Middle East. Faleeha’s memoir offers an intimate perspective on something wars can’t touch – the loving bonds of a family.
Faleeha Hassan is a poet, playwright, writer, teacher and editor who earned her master’s degree in Arabic literature and has published twenty-five books. A nominee for both the Pushcart and Pulitzer Prizes, she is the first woman to write poetry for children in Iraq. Her poems have been translated into twenty-one languages, and she has received numerous awards throughout the Middle Ease. Hassan is a member of the Iraq Literary Women’s Association, the Sinonu Association in Denmark, the Society of Poets Beyond Limits, and Poets of the World Community. Born in Iraq, she now resides in the United States.