Wounding Words: A Woman's Journal in Tunisia

At heart, this is a work of intelligent nonfiction, which Accad, a Lebanese feminist scholar and novelist has unfortunately tried to cast in a fictional guise. At the center of this earnest, occasionally intriguing fictionalized autobiography is Hayate, a feminist scholar from Beirut who visits Tunisia to acquaint herself with the women's movement in ""the most democratic"" country in the Arab world--where civil rights were updated in 1956 to include women as almost equal participants. However, as Hayate quickly learns, traditional Islamic culture and custom overrides many civic laws; Tunisia is still ""a country where women are considered permanently under age."" The narrative consists largely of Hayate's attendance at various women's meetings, where the topics include their deeply conflicted sexuality; devastating accounts of abusive husbands; activists' tales of arrest, imprisonment, and even torture for protesting sexist legislation; and energetic if somewhat simplistic arguments about Marxism and pacifism. Along the way, Hayate must give up her peaceful rented house on the Mediterranean when the landlord accosts her; forges several close friendships; and finds herself the victim of misdirected anti-American sentiment from some feminists. Though readers comes away with quite a vivid portrait of life for women in contemporary, urban Tunisia, they are subject to a poorly crafted, rambling narrative that is littered with well-meaning but uninspired poetry. (Nov.)