The Dressmaker of Khair Khana<\/em> has solid journalistic chops and remains based in fact.<\/p>\nThe story follows the main character, Kamila, had just earned a teaching certificate and was ready to continue at university when the Taliban came to power in Kabul. While her parents and older brother left, Kamila, her sisters and her younger brother (who would wind up being the sisters\u2019 mahram) stayed in Kabul in order to keep the family home. Kamila\u2019s oldest sister, already married with children, also stayed in Kabul, and she soon moves in to the family home. As savings run out, Kamila realizes that she needs to work, but how can women work under the Taliban? Kamila decides to learn how to sew, with the help of her oldest sister who is a talented seamstress in her own right.<\/p>\n
Her business plan was simple: deliver what was promised and on time, and be the best. Within months, demand exceeded what their family was able to supply, and their business was making enough to have employees. Their first employee is a widow dependent on her brother-in-law. Thus begins the story of how one girl\u2019s idea helped an entire community of women raise up by themselves. The story goes through Kamila\u2019s twists and turns in avoiding the wrath of the Taliban and becoming a successful entrepreneur where her innate business sense saved her every time, even when taking chances.<\/p>\n
The most compelling part of the story for me was the \u201cLife goes on\u201d aspect. Kamila and her sisters\u2019 ability just to pick up and get on with it, not only to help their own family, but also to help those of the women of their neighborhood, is absolutely amazing. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and to think that Kamila, still in her teens, not only survived but thrived and learned as she went along, is something not many people are capable of, let alone teenagers in Taliban-era Afghanistan. I even had a few \u201cwhere did I go wrong in my life\u201d moments when I realized that Kamila and I are the same age, which drove the story home even more for me.<\/p>\n
I appreciated the journalistic sensibilities of Lemmon\u2019s storytelling; she really let the characters speak for themselves, a rare feat when writing on Muslim women. There were times when I felt Kamila was telling the story and not Lemmon.<\/p>\n
That said, there were times I felt she came perilously close, like a lot of writers, to toeing the line of the false dichotomy Islam \u2260 modernity. For example, in chapter two, when she describes the religious education of the Taliban (boys) arriving in Kabul . There, you got some of the same tired stuff in the genre: \u201cBack in Afghanistan\u2019s good old days, women wore miniskirts.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were other times where I felt she tried too hard to paint the women in the novel as \u201cgood Muslims\u201d \u2013always pointing out that they taught Koran, prayed five times a day or whatever, when for me, the Islam of the women (especially compared to horrors propagated by the Taliban) was never in question.<\/p>\n
I wonder, if for less Muslim-savvy readers, would it be easy to fall in to the \u201cIslam is bad\u201d trap while reading this? However, the situation in Afghanistan was so complex at that time (and still is) that telling any story is hard. And conversely, for those people who do begin this book with the idea that Muslim women are submissive and brainless have enough information to change their minds by the end of the book that shows Muslim women as courageous, persevering, and in charge of their destinies, and yes, even in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Men are also absent in this book, which is both a blessing and a curse. Finally, a book about Muslim women with no men! But at the same time, the men in the book are two-dimensional characters. They are either faceless, brainless Taliban thugs, or absent and kindly, like Kamila\u2019s father and older brother. Even their little brother, the family\u2019s mahram, is described more as a \u201cresource\u201d than anything else. But relegating men to a side story lets the sisters\u2019 story shine through even more.<\/p>\n
The hallmark of any book about Muslim women for me is \u201cDid I groan or roll my eyes while reading it or not?\u201d (I know, I have low standards) In this regard, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana<\/em> got neither groans nor eyerolls. Lemmon succeeds in her inspirational portrayal, based on solid journalistic research, of the Siddiqi sisters and their colleagues as being entrepreneurs, community organizers and strong women. Although the lightness of the storytelling makes the drama of the context lose its punch, it is a feel-good, pleasurable read at the crossroads between journalism and novel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For me, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon\u2019s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is a journalistic field story masquerading as a feel good beach novel in the Oprah Book Club genre. That isn\u2019t to say I didn\u2019t enjoy reading it, but I felt it warranted something more. While Lemmon\u2019s storytelling is her strength\u2013the way the book is organized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[55,56,1360],"class_list":["post-8041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booksmagazines","tag-afghan-women","tag-afghanistan","tag-the-dressmaker-of-khair-khanna"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>For me, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon\u2019s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana<\/em><\/a> is a journalistic field story masquerading as a feel good beach novel in the Oprah Book Club genre. That isn\u2019t to say I didn\u2019t enjoy reading it, but I felt it warranted something more. While Lemmon\u2019s storytelling is her strength\u2013the way the book is organized is captivating\u2013it also stops the book short from sending its message home: fact becomes fiction and hard realities become just a story. However, considering the polemic lately surrounding another \u201cAfghanistan\u201d book, Three Cups of Tea<\/em>,<\/a> make no mistake that The Dressmaker of Khair Khana<\/em> has solid journalistic chops and remains based in fact.<\/p>\n