Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women by Geraldine Brooks

About the Book

Geraldine Brook's Nine Parts of Desire is a fascinatingly rich portrait of a little-known world that lifts the veil on the lives of Islamic women

This is the insightful, thought-provoking, and at times humorous story of Geraldine Brooks' quest to discover the truth about women and Islam.

From adopting a chador as camouflage to taking meetings with Queen Noor of Jordan and former Iranian President Rafsanjani's daughter, the author and journalist went undercover and deep into the heart of another culture. She met with Palestinians protesting about 'honor killings' for adultery and sheltered girls transformed into warriors by the Emirates' armed forces. Throughout the Middle East, Brooks was invited into the homes and lives of these women where she found real stories that overturn western stereotypes.

Fair-minded and often revelatory, Nine Parts of Desire is an extraordinarily rich tapestry of the different lives women lead under Islam and a captivating and diverse portrait of a little-known world. This is reportage at its best.

Geraldine Brooks is an award-winning author and journalist. She has written several books of fiction and non-fiction, including the internationally bestselling novel Year of Wonders and more recently March, which won the Pulitzer. She lives in rural Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating, meticulously reported, and elegantly written- Susan Faludi

She takes us behind the veils and into the homes of women in every corner of the Middle East . . . It is in her descriptions of her meetings that the book excels- Observer

About the Author

Geraldine Brooks

Geraldine Brooks is the author of the novels The Secret Chord, Caleb's Crossing, People of the Book, March (which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006), and Year of Wonders, recently optioned by Olivia Coleman. She has also written three works of non-fiction: Nine Parts of Desire, based on her experiences among Muslim women in the Mideast, Foreign Correspondence, a memoir about an Australian childhood enriched by penpals around the world and her adult quest to find them, and The Idea of Home: Boyer Lectures 2011. Brooks started out as a reporter in her hometown, Sydney, and went on to cover conflicts as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Bosnia, Somalia, and the Middle East. She now lives on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts with two sons, a horse named Valentine and a dog named Bear.