Infidel
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West.One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines… Product details and pricing info |
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288 Customer Reviews Posted
- Harlequin Saves
- In her book "Infidel," Ayaan Hirsi Ali acknowledges several people who made it possible for her to survive the Islamic tribalism she grew up under in Africa, to escape to Holland after her father arranged for her to marry a man she didn't love and to prosper thereafter. But if I were to cite one overriding factor that saved her, it would be the Western novels she read.
Throughout "Infidel," Ali brings up these books again and again, particularly in regard to love, sex and marriage. To understand their impact, it's important to recognize the mind-numbing, repressive culture she had to endure. Ali was born in Somalia to religious, clannish Muslim parents, and her mother taught her to memorize old chants of war and death, raids, and camel herding, and female Somali poetry that never mentioned love, which is, she writes, "considered synonymous with desire, and sexual desire is seen as low -- literally unspeakable."
Fortunately, Ali and her family moved to non-Muslim Kenya, where she attended a British colonial-based school and learned English. There she read "1984," "Huckleberry Finn," "Wuthering Heights" and tales by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
"Later on there were sexy books: Valley of the Dolls, Barbara Cartland, Danielle Steele," she writes. "All these books, even the trashy ones, carried with them ideas -- races were equal, women were equal to men -- and concepts of freedom, struggle, and adventure that were new to me."
Here are some other excerpts:
"[T]he spark of will inside me grew even as I studied and practiced to submit. It was fanned by the free-spirited novels ... Most of all, I think it was the novels that saved me from submission. I was young, but the first tiny, meek beginnings of my rebellion had already clicked into place."
"I always found it uncomfortable to be opposed to the West. For me, Britain and America were the countries in my books where there was decency and individual choice."
"I knew that another kind of life was possible. I had read about it ... [T]he kind of life I had always wanted, with a real education, a real job, a real marriage ... I wanted to become a person, an individual, with a life of my own."
"Infidel" is a great study for someone who would like to (further) concretize the crucial, life-sustaining role that art plays in man's life.
~ Joseph Kellard
Theainet1@optonline.net - 2008-08-29, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A must read!!!!!
- Ayan Hirsi Ali's account of growing up as a Somali woman in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Germany, and the Netherlands, what she endured, her search for religious meaning as a Muslim and her struggle to be her own person was inspiring and a must read for all!!!!!!
- 2008-08-28, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Honest, Life-changing
- One of the few life-changing books that I would consider a must-read for all: honest, direct, and with inspiring moral clarity.
- 2008-08-28, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A story that stays with you
- This is one of the most thought provoking books I have ever read. Ayaan Hirsi Ali gives a detailed portrayal of her life story and growing up Muslim. All that she writes about will stay with you and will make you think.
Her amazing life journey had me taken through several countries and through a culture as a woman I could have never in my wildest dreams knew existed. I had heard about female genital mutilation, but I never truly knew of the real horrors of it. I could also never imagine a mother telling her child to hit before you are hit as a survival of the fittest strategy. Alot of things she writes about are not what we in the westernize world are taught, and it seems very foreign to the point of culture shock.
Please pick up the book and read it with an open mind. I can definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to learn more about the struggles of women around the world. - 2008-08-28, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A wonderful read and profoundly moving experience.
- This book opened my eyes to the truth of the world we all live in now - a world that is smaller than we think and much more evil and more perilous. It is the only book I have ever read that truly explains the reason for the 9/11 attack in a way that makes sense and is believable. It opens our vision to the future and to what we can know it will be. I feel that I not only will never think in the same way, I will never be the same. At the same time it portrays amazing courage and is absolutely inspiring, especially so to all young women everywhere.
- 2008-08-23, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
