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Cover of A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

A Woman Is No Man

  • 352 pages · about 6 hours
  • First published 2019
  • 7 editions

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1 About this book

This debut novel by an Arab-American voice,takes us inside the lives of conservative Arab women living in America.

In Brooklyn, eighteen-year-old Deya is starting to meet with suitors. Though she doesn’t want to get married, her grandparents give her no choice. History is repeating itself: Deya’s mother, Isra, also had no choice when she left Palestine as a teenager to marry Adam. Though Deya was raised to believe her parents died in a car accident, a secret note from a mysterious, yet familiar-looking woman makes Deya question everything she was told about her past. As the narrative alternates between the lives of Deya and Isra, she begins to understand the dark, complex secrets behind her community.

Good for readers who want: historical fiction and literary fiction.

  • Historical fiction
  • Literary fiction
  • Family life
  • Children of immigrants
  • Arranged marriage
  • Feminism
  • Adult Fiction
  • New york

2 About Etaf Rum

Born 1988

Etaf Rum is a Palestinian-American novelist and New York Times best-selling author of A Woman is No Man (2019) and Evil Eye (2023).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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