Our Women on the Ground

Praise

“These stories from the field are rare and remarkable. . . . A timely, engaging work that reveals why the journalist’s profession is so important and so endangered.”
—Kirkus

“A compelling and gripping read.”
—Middle East Monitor

“A ‘who’s who’ of excellent women writers who have done some of the best journalism in the Arab world.”
—Book Riot

“A revelation.”
—The National

“Out of the gloom of the Middle East, this book brims with new voices—Arab women reporting on their world as no one else has seen it, with courage, inspiration, and resilience. A terrific read, full of insight and surprise.”
—David E. Hoffman, former foreign editor of The Washington Post and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Billion Dollar Spy: A True Story of Cold War Espionage and Betrayal

“This astounding, affecting collection offers a sweeping panorama of the contemporary Arab experience—heartland and exile; repression and liberation; violence and love. I struggle to think of any work of reportage that has so fully depicted the many-layered recent history of this vibrant and traumatized region. Rich with understanding and sincere emotional connection to the people and places that drive the news, this book contains voices that are both fresh and necessary.”
—Megan K. Stack, author of Women’s Work: A Reckoning with Work and Home

“Our Women on the Ground is a remarkable book that fills a tremendous gap, as mainstream media coverage of the Middle East and Arab world has long been dominated by men or outsiders. The voices of these trailblazing women are even more vital today, when the region’s upheaval cannot be explained without local, and especially female, perspectives.”
—Hassan Hassan, New York Times bestselling co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror

“This dazzling book is so many things at once: a social primer on conflict in the Arab world; visceral narration that accommodates multiple allegiances, histories, and frames of inquiry; and a work of challenging reportage that refuses to fetishize risk and presents people living with conflict as humans, not simply subjects of violence. It elegantly demonstrates how to tell stories with humility, affection, and truthfulness.” 
—Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran and Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran

“In this groundbreaking anthology, Arab women write of the challenges and beauty of reporting from their homelands. With passion and beauty, they tell stories of activism, arrest, motherhood, joy, despair, exile and pain. For so long, news from the Middle East was told from a Western—and largely male—lens. Now it comes from the women who live there, who have the most at stake at preserving peace and establishing new norms in their countries. Their stories of how they crossed boundaries and pushed the limits professionally, culturally, and personally are stark and haunting. I loved this book, for its courage but also for the fact that the future of news will be told by local correspondents whose passion for justice and truth shines through. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to see a side of news they would never see by watching the nightly news.”
—Janine di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria

“With steely courage and pens of fire, these sahafiyat—Arab female journalists—tell the stories of their countries’ conflicts, providing rigor, depth and insight few outside commenters could match.”
—Molly Crabapple, illustrator of Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War and author of Drawing Blood

“The journalists in this book have demonstrated the highest professional achievements and courage. . . . Without them, the stories of today and tomorrow will remain only partly told.”
—Christiane Amanpour, from the Foreword