Dancing in Damascus

Nancy Lindisfarne is Senior Lecturer in the Anthropology of the Arab World at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She has done ethnographic fieldwork in Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Syria; has published numerous articles on gender, marriage, and Islam in the Middle East; and has coedited two volumes, Dislocating Masculinity and Languages of Dress in the Middle East. As Nancy Tapper , she is the author of Bartered Brides: Politics, Gender, and Marriage in an Afghan Tribal Society.

"In this book we have a new experience: an approach to creative writing that is different, that starts with research and social investigation but transforms the results into a literary text. Although the author is a foreigner—perhaps indeed because she is a foreigner—her observations of social life in Damascus are valuable, especially because she does not engage in touristic or orientalist comment. [She is able] to penetrate to the depths of Syrian life, in the same way as would the best of our local women writers." — Mamdouh Adwan, poet and playwright, in praise of the Arabic edition"In this book we have a new experience: an approach to creative writing that is different, that starts with research and social investigation but transforms the results into a literary text. Although the author is a foreigner—perhaps indeed because she is a foreigner—her observations of social life in Damascus are valuable, especially because she does not engage in touristic or orientalist comment. [She is able] to penetrate to the depths of Syrian life, in the same way as would the best of our local women writers." — Mamdouh Adwan, poet and playwright, in praise of the Arabic edition"Nancy Lindisfarne is a talented storyteller with an ability to create settings and characters as readable and convincing as most of the contemporary fiction in literary journals today." — Carol Spaulding, Drake University

• Map The Tortoise True Love Jellyfish Fresh Apricots Not One of Us The Box (1959) Lovely Tits Hyena's Piss Ghalia's Wedding Postscript: The Pirates' Socks Notes References