Tomorrow, God Willing: Self-Made Destinies in Cairo

How does poverty shape the life of a Cairo housewife? In this extremely readable and often resonantly intimate book, Norwegian anthropologist Wikan (Behind the Veil in Arabia: Women in Oman) brings to life the everyday details and long-term effects of Third-World poverty. The fact that Wikan has known and visited her subject--the vivacious, eloquent, ill-fortuned Umm Ali--annually for 25 years gives the author a rare breadth and depth of understanding. Central is Wikan's notion that ""poverty inflicts damage mainly through the stigma, failure, and hopelessness that go with it... one's value as a person is at stake."" Umm Ali's husband's physical abuse causes heartache, but not as much as his inability to earn a decent living. Wikan paints a vivid portrait of Umm Ali's spacious but squalid apartment; her nine births and six surviving children, one of whom commits suicide; and the mayhem of ""life without a schedule,"" a particular quality of being poor in which ""the absence of plan and foresight wears on body and soul."" Happily, however, Umm Ali's life improves in old age, when her husband finds a good job and they settle into relative comfort. Wikan eschews an academic writing style, wishing instead that the book ""read as a story""--and, refreshingly, it does. Perhaps her cogently empathetic narrative style was inspired by a belief in the importance of people talking about their problems. It is a belief shared by Umm Ali, whose motto is: ""Talking together makes wise."" (Aug.)