Blood Into Ink: South Asian And Middle Eastern Women Write War

by Miriam Cooke

The experiences of women in twentieth-century wars in South Asia and the Middle East challenge the concept of the separation of front and homefront and of family and society common to most modern western wars. Women there have not only entered into what was once considered male-only territory in men's roles wearing men's clothing, but more important, they have entered explicitly as women playing a variety of roles in the conflicts surrounding them. Their self-conscious, self-confident presence has changed the nature of that territory. This anthology reflects the realization that through their writing, women have created a new mythology of the war-peace paradox―one that is grounded in the reality of their own lives. The works collected here illustrate the many ways in which women have become active participants in social conflict and military battles, speaking of war not only as an extraordinary but also as an ordinary experience of coping with violence and conflict on a daily basis. Women's involvement with the rituals of violence does not begin or end with traditional war; their daily struggles for survival stretch seamlessly into the more public arena of political war. In this anthology, Drs. Cooke and Rustomji-Kerns offer a collection of journal entries, interviews, fiction, and poetry by twentieth-century Middle Eastern and South Asian women writing about war and political conflicts. Some of the works were written in English, but the majority were translated specifically for this anthology and are published here for the first time in English. Blood Into Ink is an important and much-needed addition to the rapidly growing literature on war and peace. The anthology will greatly enlarge our understanding of the role of women in one of the most central of human concerns.

270 pages, Paperback

First published May 19, 1994

About the author

miriam cooke is Braxton Craven Professor emerita of Arab Cultures at Duke University. She has been a visiting professor in Tunisia, Romania, Indonesia, Qatar and Alliance of Civilizations Institute in Istanbul. She serves on several international advisory boards, including academic journals and institutions.

Her writings have focused on the intersection of gender and war in modern Arabic literature, Arab women writers’ constructions of Islamic feminism and Arab cultural studies with a concentration on the Arabian Gulf and Syria. She has published fifteen books and is currently working on a novel about World War II Palestine.

Three of her books (Women Claim Islam; Women and the War Story and The Anatomy of an Egyptian Intellectual: Yahya Haqqi) were named Choice Outstanding Academic Books. Several books have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French and German.