Fay afaf kanafani biography of william

A rare feminist perspective on a people and culture in one of the most tumultuous regions in the world, Nadia is the autobiography of Fay Afaf Kanafani, an Arab Muslim woman born in Beirut in 1918.

Fay afaf kanafani biography of william

Kanafani is frank and passionate as she recounts her difficult life. Engaged at thirteen to a distant cousin, Kanafani was married by age seventeen and living with her husband's family in Palestine. Her recollections provide fresh insight into Arab-Jewish relations in Palestine from 1935 to 1948, the year Kanafani's husband was killed by Israeli soldiers as they advanced to occupy Haifa and the family became refugees in Lebanon.

As a widow with three children, Kanifani, who learned early in life how tradition and custom circumscribed women's rights, broke free of all of those traditions and defiantly resumed her college studies. Struggling against social norms and family tradition, Kanafani became a successful and respected career woman.

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