cover image Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women

Imagining Ourselves: Global Voices from a New Generation of Women

Paula Goldman, Hafsa Abiola, , foreword by Isabel Allende. . New World Library, $26.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-1-57731-524-7

This lovely and visually kinetic book is the perfect antidote to the constant barrage of bleak reports about the future. An activist and Harvard graduate student, Goldman asked women around the world between the ages of 20 and 40: "What defines your generation of women?" Of more than 3,000 responses, 105 are included in this inspiring anthology, published in association with San Francisco's International Museum of Women. There are some recognizable names among the artists, writers, musicians, community and political organizers, and academics included. Queen Rania of Jordan describes the need for a "peaceline" for regions in conflict (an idea she credits her father-in-law, the late King Hussein, with teaching her). Attorney and author Karenna Gore Schiff points out that the U.S. and Australia are the only two industrialized countries without paid maternity leave. Czech artist Katerina Otcenaskova-Richtr tells of her mother, a smalltown woman whose only choice was to be wife and mother, but supported her daughter's ambitions. "I am an artist. I am strange. Wait—am I strange? No, nowadays a daughter working as an artist is a normal thing." Otcenaskova-Richtr died last March of cancer at age 31, but her spirit is preserved here with those of many inspiring women. (Mar. 8)