Joumana Haddad in conversation with Jeremy Bowen: Confessions of an angry Arab woman

Talk September 7, 2010 7:00 PM

The West’s perception of Arab women has become increasingly associated with the victim, oppression and the veil. As a poet, writer and journalist Joumana Haddad has fought against such simplistic stereotyping of the Arab woman. She will be at the Frontline Club in conversation with BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen to discuss this and her new book I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman.

In 2008 Joumana Haddad caused a media storm and outraged the Middle East’s conservative population when she launched the controversial Arabic magazine Jasad (The Body). There were calls for the magazine to be banned and Haddad received a number of death threats.

In her new book I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman Joumana Haddad tells the story of her own intellectual development and the impact of literature on her life. She challenges the notion of the oppressed Arab woman so frequently  depicted by the West and explores what it means to be an Arab woman today.