Guest House for Young Widows
An intimate, deeply reported account of the women who made a shocking decision: to leave their comfortable lives behind and join the Islamic State.
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Australia:
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• readings
In early 2014, the Islamic State clinched its control of Raqqa in Syria. Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, urged Muslims around the world to come join the caliphate. Witnessing the brutal oppression of the Assad regime in Syria, and moved to fight for justice, thousands of men and women heeded his call.
At the heart of this story is a cast of unforgettable young women who responded. Emma, from Germany; Sharmeena from Bethnal Green, London; Nour from Tunis: these were women–some still in high school–from urban families, some with university degrees and bookshelves filled with novels by Jane Austen and Dan Brown; many with cosmopolitan dreams of travel and adventure. But instead of finding a land of justice and piety, they found themselves trapped within the most brutal terrorist regime of the twenty-first century, a world of chaos and upheaval and violence.
What is the line between victim and collaborator? How do we judge these women who both suffered and inflicted intense pain? What role is there for Muslim women in the West? In what is bound to be a modern classic of narrative nonfiction, Moaveni takes us into the school hallways of London, kitchen tables in Germany, the coffee shops in Tunis, the caliphate’s OB/GYN and its “Guest House for Young Widows”–where wives of the fallen waited to be remarried–to demonstrate that the problem called terrorism is a far more complex, political, and deeply relatable one than we generally admit.
Reviews for Guest House for Young Widows
shortlisted for the baillie gifford prize for non-fiction 2019:
The UK'S PREMIER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION BOOKS
“An incredibly detailed piece of journalistic research … It’s genius.”–Baillie Gifford Prize podcast
“In concise, visceral vignettes, Moaveni immerses her readers in a milieu saturated with the romantic appeal of violence. The result is a journalistic tour de force that lays bare the inner lives, motivations, and aspirations of her subjects.”–Publishers Weekly (STARRED REVIEW)
“Fascinating … This penetrating account holds vital lessons for the west’s failed counter-terrorism policy.”–Financial Times
“The debate badly needs an injection of sanity. Happily, Azadeh Moaveni’s Guest House for Young Widows … provides some perspective … Moaveni makes several pertinent points.”–The Sunday Times
“A skilful, sensitive report … Superb.”–The Guardian
“‘Guest House for Young Widows: Among the Women of ISIS’ tackles many taboos that have hampered cleareyed discussion of Islamist extremism in general and ISIS in particular. The book provides an illuminating, much-needed corrective to stock narratives, not only about the group that deliberately and deftly terrified officials and publics across the world, but also about the larger “war on terror” and the often ineffective, even counterproductive policies of Western and Middle Eastern governments.”
–Anne Barnard, New York Times Book Review
“Azadeh Moaveni offers what is sure to become a modern classic, answering the question of how Muslim women become, as the Western media puts it, 'radicalized.' ... The stories are utterly captivating ... Moaveni not only provides granular views of particular women as they navigate this sociopolitical minefield but also situates these stories in a broader cultural context, rendering them legible in compelling ways. She raises as many questions as she answers, wondering, for example, what will fill the void left by ISIS and how the home cultures of these vulnerable women could have interceded in their responses to online rhetoric. I couldn’t put the book down.”—Bookpage (STARRED REVIEW)
“Peeling back layers of gender, Islamophobia, faith, loyalty, and socialization, Moaveni situates the women’s stories within the larger historical and sociopolitical context of the time. Following 13 women in total, Guest House for Young Widows is an ambitious attempt to understand the attraction of ISIS for many disaffected youth who were ready to believe.”—Booklist
“Working with 20-odd women involved in IS and their families, the author shows them to be a diverse group with various motivations…Writing sympathetically but not uncritically, Moaveni helps readers understand why these women join IS.”—Kirkus
“Azadeh Moaveni has achieved a feat of reporting to provide a rare glimpse into the private lives of these ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events. Brave, visceral, moving; essential reading for anyone seeking to understand so much of the violence in our troubled world.”—Ben Rawlence, author of City of Thorns