What do you think?
Rate this book
Desperate Spring: Lives of Algerian Women
Book by Tonati, Fettouma
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
35 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 11, 2018
Desperate Spring was my first book set in Algeria. I have no idea if the translation has done any justice to the original, but the story shook me. Algeria in the 1980s, which is when this book was published, seems to have been hell for a woman. I wonder if much has changed now -hell is ourselves, Eliot wrote. But as I read the different lives of the Algerian women described in this book, I was astonished at the pain and despair.
This is not the sort of book you read to sound erudite, and fall in love with the quotes that we highlight on Goodreads. No. The language rarely rises above today's "Insta-quote-worthy" standards. Yet, if we can't travel, then reading should broaden our minds. It should fill us with the deepest empathy for those corners of the world that are filled with darkness, and bear in mind that the hand of darkness is more sweeping than ever before. I wept inside for the women who struggle to make their lives into meaning, who fight the battles for a life that I take for granted.
This is not the sort of book you read to sound erudite, and fall in love with the quotes that we highlight on Goodreads. No. The language rarely rises above today's "Insta-quote-worthy" standards. Yet, if we can't travel, then reading should broaden our minds. It should fill us with the deepest empathy for those corners of the world that are filled with darkness, and bear in mind that the hand of darkness is more sweeping than ever before. I wept inside for the women who struggle to make their lives into meaning, who fight the battles for a life that I take for granted.
Displaying 1 of 1 review