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The Pearl That Broke Its Shell: A Novel Hardcover – May 6, 2014
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Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.
In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
- Print length464 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow
- Publication dateMay 6, 2014
- Dimensions6 x 1.41 x 9 inches
- ISBN-100062244752
- ISBN-13978-0062244758
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A tale of two Afghani women, separated by a century, who share a similar destiny.Popular highlight
People who are beset by tragedy once and twice are sure to grieve again. Fate finds it easier to retrace its treads.588 Kindle readers highlighted thisPopular highlight
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From Booklist
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“Nadia Hashimi has written, first and foremost, a tender and beautiful family story. Her always engaging multigenerational tale is a portrait of Afghanistan in all of its perplexing, enigmatic glory, and a mirror into the still ongoing struggles of Afghan women.” — Khaled Hosseini, author of And the Mountains Echoed and The Kite Runner
“A fascinating look at the unspoken lives of Afghani women, separated by generations and miles, yet achingly similar. This is a story to transport you and make you think.” — Shilpi Somaya Gowda, New York Times bestselling author of Secret Daughter
“Hashimi weaves together two equally engrossing stories in her epic, spellbinding debut.” — Booklist (starred review)
From the Back Cover
A luminous and unforgettable tale of two women, destiny, and identity in Afghanistan
Kabul, 2007: The Taliban rules the streets. With a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can rarely leave the house or attend school. Their only hope lies in the ancient Afghan custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a son until she is of marriageable age. As a boy, she has the kind of freedom that was previously unimaginable . . . freedom that will transform her forever.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great-grandmother Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life in the same way—the change took her on a journey from the deprivation of life in a rural village to the opulence of a king's palace in the bustling metropolis of Kabul.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell interweaves the stories of these two remarkable women who are separated by a century but share the same courage and dreams. What will happen once Rahima is old enough to marry? How long can Shekiba pass as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
About the Author
Nadia Hashimi is a pediatrician turned international bestselling novelist and daughter of Afghan immigrants. She is the author of four books for adults, as well as the middle grade novels One Half from the East and The Sky at Our Feet. She lives with her family in the Washington, DC, suburbs. Visit her online at nadiahashimibooks.com.
Product details
- Publisher : William Morrow; First Edition (May 6, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 464 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062244752
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062244758
- Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.41 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #829,530 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,824 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #11,713 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- #12,067 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author
Nadia Hashimi is a pediatrician turned novelist who draws on her Afghan culture to craft internationally bestselling books for adults as well as young readers. Her novels span generations and continents, taking on themes like forced migration, conflict, poverty, misogyny, colonialism, and addiction. She enjoys conversations with readers of all ages in libraries, book festivals, classrooms, and living rooms. With translations in seventeen languages, she’s connected with readers around the world.
Nadia was born and raised in New York and New Jersey. Both her parents were born in Afghanistan and left in the early 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. Her mother, granddaughter of a notable Afghan poet, traveled to Europe to obtain a Master’s degree in civil engineering and her father came to the United States, where he worked hard to fulfill his American dream and build a new, brighter life for his immediate and extended family. Nadia was fortunate to be surrounded by a large family of aunts, uncles and cousins, keeping the Afghan culture an integral part of their daily lives.
Nadia graduated from Brandeis University with degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Biology. She studied medicine in Brooklyn, New York, and then completed her pediatric residency training at NYU and Bellevue hospitals before moving to Maryland with her husband. On days off from a busy emergency room and after years of avid reading, she began crafting stories that drew on her heritage and the complex experiences of Afghans.
In 2003, she made her first trip to Afghanistan with her parents who had not returned to their homeland since leaving in the 1970s. She continues to serve on boards of organizations committed to educating and nurturing Afghanistan’s most vulnerable children and empowering the female leaders of tomorrow. She is a member of the US-Afghan Women’s Council and an advisor to Kallion, an organization that seeks to elevate leadership through humanities. Locally, she serves as a Montgomery County health care commissioner and organizing committee member of the Gaithersburg Book Festival.
She and her husband are the beaming parents of four curious, rock star children, an African Grey parrot named Nickel who reminds the kids to brush their teeth, and Justice, the hungriest Rhodesian Ridgeback you’ve ever met.
Connect with her on Facebook, Twitter or via her website (www.nadiahashimi.com) to learn more or request a virtual book club visit. She's quite social.
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The story shifts between the young women who share not only DNA, but the fact that both were allowed for awhile to dress and live as males. Under a custom called bacha posh, families who do not have sons or have a single son, may allow a daughter to have her hair cut in boy fashion, don boy’s clothing, be given the freedom of boys to attend school, play in the streets, do marketing and price haggling for the family, earn money for the family, freed from household chores, be favored by the father, and receive the best food at home. After the onset of puberty, the girl has to transition back to a traditional Afghani female. Wherein lies much of the poignancy of this exquisite story. Once they have tasted freedom, recognition and respect, the bacha posh can have difficulty adjusting back to their culture’s traditional female role.
Rahima, allowed to become a bacha posh, is one of five daughters. Her outspoken, sharp-tongued maternal aunt, Khala Shaima, never married due to a physical deformity, visits the family frequently to urge that the Rahima and her sisters be allowed to attend school, that they are as worthy as boys. She also tells them many stories, including that of Shekiba, their great-great-grandmother. Although the girls are allowed to attend school for a short time, after an incident with boys harassing them in the streets, they ultimately end up homebound. Rahima’s father is not a good provider, had spent much of his young adulthood fighting with the mujahideen against the Russian occupiers. His re-entry to civilian life did not go well. Between his substance abuse and his lack of a son, he was an angry, bitter man. His continued alliance with the local warlord from his mujahideen days will have drastic consequences for his family.
Shekiba was the daughter of a happily married couple. Her father was a farmer who could make any crop grow, a true man of the earth. He taught all of his children to read. Her mother, two brothers and a sister died in a cholera outbreak, leaving Shekiba and her father working the farm. After father dies, Shekiba tells no one and continues to work the farm on her own, dawning her burqa if anyone approaches the homestead. Eventually her deception is discovered, she is moved to her grandmother’s house in the family compound and treated worse than a servant. Her spirit is fatigued at times, but never defeated. Shekiba becomes a female dressed as a male in the king’s harem, just outside the palace. The king has learned not to trust male guards.
The description of Shekiba’s life in the harem is interesting and very compelling. The prestige of the concubines, the size of their apartments, their wardrobes and jewelry, were determined by the favor they held with the king. For the most part, this was dependent on the number of male children the concubine bore. The same measure used for Afghani wives, actually. Despite the luxury and leisure afforded concubines, there was always a shadow of danger hanging over them in their silk and jewelry-laden prison. Displeasing the king could be deadly. There is a vivid description of a stoning of a concubine who has entertained another man.
This story is fascinating. Not only is it beautifully written, but the two arcs of the story, Shekiba and Rahima, based a century apart, show the similarities and contrasts of the female role in Afghani society. Shekiba saw the beginnings of modernization for Afghanistan under King Amanullah and Queen Soraya which included the expansion of the roles for women in society (true historical characters). A century later, Rahima actually participates in the Afghani legislature as assistant to a female representative.
King Amanullah’s efforts to modernize Afghanistan a century ago were met with resistance and rebellion, eventually forcing him into exile after less than a decade of rule.
It is still an open question whether today’s efforts to modernize the country and expand the role of women in the Afghani culture will succeed. The message of this book is that through the indomitable nature of the human spirit, there is hope, no matter the external circumstances of one’s existence.
I gave this book a 4.75/5.0 rating. I hated to put it down to work, eat, sleep, and actually read it while I was on the treadmill and bike at the gym. I have barely sketched the stories of these two women; there are many other characters in the book who are just as mesmerizing. The most intense focus is on the women, but the men’s stories are represented as well because more than anything else, this is a novel about family. The men’s fates are also shaped by cultural expectations and how they use the power endowed by their societal structure has consequences for everyone around them. Some choose to brutalize others with this power while other men choose kindness, empathy and love.
What is interesting is that the portrayal of Rahima is not a story of someone living under the radical Taliban beliefs, but of the more traditional Afghan society. Her great-great-grandmother, Shekiba's world is that of the monarchy. One can see how despite the changes in government, little has changed for women.
Hashimi's language is beautiful at times but the world she paints is bleak, full of loss and struggle. There is strength in many the women who exist in the novel but it creates a bitterness that they often take out on each other and leaves the reader with a sense of anger and a desire for them to turn that bitterness and anger on the men who have built this dreadful world they inhabit.
The two women's stories end differently, but for me it is Rahima's that falls short. It felt rushed and almost anti-climactic. Granted, at 450 pages, it was time to end it, but there was room for editing earlier on that could have left more space to do her story justice in the ending. It wasn't a bad ending in terms of where it left the reader, rather a poorly paced ending that lost the potential impact of a better structured and written ending.
Despite the rush at the end, the novel is worth the read for the insights into a world few westerners can fathom. It is through novels that we can develop empathy for those who live a life so different from our own.
That is the world opened through the Nadia Hashimi's book "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell." It is the story of two young Afghani women: Rahima, who is one of five daughters in a family that decides to make her a bachata posh, which allows her to dress and be treated as a boy until marriageable age; and in alternate chapters, her great, great grandmother, Shekiba, an orphan treated badly first by her family and then sold into servitude to pay a debt. As told in Hashimi's capable hands, we see how similar their lives are and how the determination for a better life drives both.
This is a quite astounding read and a good story that allows us to sea and begin to understand a bit of what it is like to live in such a world, especially in the time of great changes for Afghanistan.
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Rahima is second of four sisters in family of a drug-addict father who works for a war-lord in a war-struck Afghanistan. She is made to pose as bacha-posh, a boy, as her mother is not able to bear a son. The arrangement works well for everybody as Rahim, the bacha posh, helps her mother with the house-hold chores and keeps her father happy with the delusion of having a son. But this fairy-tale comes to an abrupt end when the war-lord for whom Rahima’s father works offers to marry Rahima. Her sister, Parwin, is also married to a cousin of the war-lord. Though the sisters live only a wall apart in their new homes, they hardly get to see each other while they struggle in their married lives.
When Rahima’s aunt tells the girls about Shekiba, their great great grandother who has had an equally challenging life many centuries ago, Rahima draws inspiration from the story of her. Shekiba who had half of her disfigured due to an accident in her childhood, is abhorred by everybody around her. She is known to bring bad luck. But her life takes a turn when she land’s up in the royal palace. She dresses up as a man and guards the harem of King’s mistresses. She feels free walk about in pants and without the chador( the head scarf) but his freedom comes with a price.
Though Rahima and Shekiba’s stories are depicted in different times, beautiful narration by the author ensures that the reader is smoothly transported between the eras and does not feel lost. One might feel sympathetic about these women but also praises their courage and perseverance. The subtle message that the plight of women in Afghanistan has not changed much over the centuries is not lost.
Having read two of Hashimi’s novels, it’s easy to be assured that you will never be disappointed with her books. Reading the tales of hardships portrayed in her books sitting in a comfortable room makes you grateful for what you have. But you are also certain of change and progress by the optimism scattered in the stories. Rahima and Shekiba story of adversities and hope certainly deserves to be read.