Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship by Bee Rowlatt Let's read. Two very different women form a friendship via e-mail, a young British journalist, mother of three little girls and a middle-aged Iraqi woman who is desperately trying to leave her country during the war. Our book club thought that both title and the cover picture were misleading, we had expected something different. They didn't talk about Jane Austen much and we imagined May, the woman from Iraq, very different than the lady in the cover. Bee, the British woman, was hard to warm up to, we felt a disconnection between her and May to whom she talked like to a child. Everything seemed to be a lot about appearance, Bee wasn't realistic, it seemed a like a game to her. We felt she only got the book deal because of May who is a much better writer. The second half was definitely better when she seemed to realize a little more what this was all about. We were glad that May was able to get out. On the other hand, you also have to admire Bee's action. Eve though there's really nothing remarkable about her, she used her connections to make a huge difference in someone's life, for their benefit. She could have just been sympathetic and gone on with all her work, charity meetings, etc. and never really given May's situation more thought. Do hungry people get fed from rhetoric? We talked about asylum seekers, how being in an endless situation can lead to depression. We asked ourselves whether Bee redeemed herself by writing about her personal problems. We also wondered whether May and Ali are still together as we couldn't see Ali coping with life in Britain. Another subject that came up was the war and why are we there and why not. We also talked about democracy and whether you can really bring it to a country. I found a few good links with democracy quotes, if you'd like to check them out, there are hundreds on each one of them: The Quote Garden and Better World Quotes. My favourite: " You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it ." Akbar Ganji. Although, I also really love the one my son told me when he saw me looking for them: " Fighting for peace is like screaming for silence! " (N.N.) We discussed this in our book club in September 2011. From the back cover: " A London mum and Iraqi teacher should have nothing in common. Yet now, despite their differences, they're the firmest of friends . . . Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit is a touching and poignant portrait of an unlikely friendship. Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry? May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is the story of two women who share laughter and tears, and swap their confidences, dreams and fears. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad . . . Bee Rowlatt is a former show-girl turned BBC World Service journalist. A mother of three and would-be do-gooder, she can find keeping her career going while caring for her three daughters (and husband) pretty tough, even in leafy North London. May Witwit is an Iraqi expert in Chaucer and sender of emails depicting kittens in fancy dress. She is prepared to face every hazard imaginable to make that all-important hairdresser's appointment. " Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit. In early 2005, a BBC journalist emails an Iraqi woman to confirm and prepare for a telephone interview about day to day life in Baghdad, and about her thoughts on the forthcoming elections there. May's detailed and frank responses prompt more curiosity and questions from Bee, and a friendship develops between the two women. They tell each other about their work, relationships and family lives. I picked up this book because of the title but should say it turned out not really to be about Jane Austen. May is an academic who teaches English literature at a women's college in Baghdad, and explains: I think it helps my students because it transports them to another culture, another life, and another world. The world of Jane Austen is so far removed from our daily terror of bombs and violence. There are more brief references to literature that May is teaching or writing papers on herself, but most of the emails are about the two women's day to day lives, and about the difficulties of daily life in Baghdad that May and her husband face. The conversation shifts frequently from light, funny and frivolous things to serious, sad and scary subjects. I really appreciated feeling that I was being offered an insight into life in Baghdad after the invasion and war, and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. May is very open and honest about her views – life wasn't great before, but in her first email she says it is a mini hell , and it becomes more difficult, as there is an ongoing civil war, and she has very real fears that she or her husband Ali will be killed by a bomb, or that someone will try and kill him. I was against the war and our government's policy on Iraq, and I found reading this individual human story about how it has affected one woman very compelling (of course, it confirmed my own biased opinion that Britain and the US have not exactly improved lives for ordinary Iraqis – maybe someone with a different view would hate the book). While May is unusual in some ways for an Iraqi – she comes from quite a privileged background and her parents were educated in Britain and in fact the whole family lived here for some years when she was a child – I also thought the content of her emails really offered a counter to Western stereotypes of women's oppression in Muslim countries. She has what I would consider to be quite a feminist outlook on things, but doesn't see Islam as especially oppressive. I also found Bee's emails about her life as a working mother interesting. She has three daughters and considers whether to have a fourth, but she also has an interesting and enjoyable job and has no desire to be a stay at home mum. There is a story to unfold from this correspondence too – May decides that life in Iraq is too unhappy and dangerous to stay there, and asks Bee for help to leave. Bee finds out that seeking asylum in Britain will be very difficult, but eventually she find people who can help find a way forward. The email correspondence turns out to be key to this – its publication in book form is a way to raise funds so May could come to study in Britain and prove that she has funds to support her and her husband. This book offers an insight into the life of one individual in post-war Baghdad and a chance to eavesdrop on a developing friendship. It also turns out to be a story of how an email/online friendship changes someone's life (hopefully for the better). I would like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of this to The Bookbag, and would definitely recommend buying or borrowing it. There are various suggestions for further reading, depending on what interests you. The book title reminded me of Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Some modern novels for Jane Austen fans are Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, Acting Up by Melissa Nathan or The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer. If you like reading letters and diaries, Nella Last's Peace is based on the post-war diaries of an ordinary woman in England. Mary Dora Russell's Dreamers of the Day is a historical novel set in the Middle East in the 1920s which offers an insight into the background of the present day's politics. You can read more book reviews or buy Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free. You can read more book reviews or buy Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit at Amazon.com . Comments. Like to comment on this review? Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site. Valerie Hedges said: The true story of May Witwit my childhood neighbour and school friend while she lived in the UK as a child, now an Iraqi Academic, her survival in Iraq and journey to safety in the UK via her email friendship with a BBC journalist. •How to survive life in a war zone… leaving earlier to go to work in order to get through the checkpoints …But still going to work!! •What to do when doing your hair and the electricity goes off…Go to work half curly and half straight! •How to encourage kids to still study during chaos…. show them its business as usual, lessons give a touch of normality. The story we didn’t hear in the news, of ordinary daily life during the Iraq war as told by an Iraqi. It isn’t often that two 51 year old women who were neighbours and school friends aged 11 meet up again in London on a sunny May afternoon after almost 40 years, and when one asks the other “What have you been doing, what has happened to you…?” She knows that it is a daft question really and the answer is too harrowing to imagine for the answer lies in the reply “Read my book!” I owe more than I can possibly express to Bee Rowlatt, thanks to her courage, daring and friendship my childhood friend is safe in the UK, and I have met her again after forty years. An inspiring book that will move the reader to tears in its accounts of courage… make you smile and put lots of troubles in perspective. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit: review. A chance email between a London journalist and an Iraqi university lecturer sparks an unusual relationship. Bee Rowlatt lives an ordinary life in north London, while May Witwit clings on to survival in Baghdad. But from an improbable start, an email friendship blossoms into a fascinating portrayal of post-invasion Iraq. Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad juxtaposes Rowlatt and Witwit’s lives, with one trapped in the bloodbath of Baghdad and the other baking cakes for the school’s parents’ association. “We were in Dorset for 10 days and had loads of people coming, so I thought it would be exhausting,” Rowlatt writes. “Just as I was making tea and preparing breakfast a bomb exploded outside,” Witwit answers. Their emails touch on everything from hairdressers and Jane Austen to the Sunni-Shia conflict and the corruption in Iraq. Witwit, in particular, has a lovely turn of phrase. Although she is a professor of literature, she finds herself teaching human rights to her female students. This is like “describing colours to the colour-blind,” she notes. When she is teaching her Iraqi students about Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter , “they just can’t understand why her husband didn’t kill the two lovers”. The contrasting views and opinions of Rowlatt and Witwit are explored. You can almost feel Rowlatt, who works for the World Service and is married to Newsnight ’s Ethical Man, Justin Rowlatt, gulping as Witwit notes Saddam Hussein’s “unprecedented courage in meeting his death”. As an academic living in what was the smart part of Baghdad, Witwit’s life has been destroyed by the invasion. “Yeah the Old Man had his faults, but we were better off then than we are now,” she says. The emails work best at the outset of the book, as the pair explain their lives. But gradually the pace slows. During the second half of the book, the authors become increasingly bogged down in the tedium of Middle Eastern bureaucracy. The other problem for Witwit is that, besieged in a house with nothing to do, her remarks become monotonous. Nevertheless, the charm and wit of the writers carry the book along. As the Chilcot Inquiry tries, yet again, to understand the Iraq war, this book is a reminder of its horrific consequences for millions of innocent Iraqis. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: the True Story of an Unlikely Friendship. by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit. 384PP, Penguin, £8.99 (PBK) Buy now for £8.99 (PLUS 99p p&p) 0844 871 1515 or from Telegraph Books. ISBN 13: 9780141038537. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship. Rowlatt, Bee ; Witwit, May. This specific ISBN edition is currently not available. A London mom and Iraqi teacher should have nothing in common. Yet now, despite their differences, they're the firmest of friends. . . Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit is a touching and poignant portrait of an unlikely friendship. Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry? May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars, and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mom of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats, and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion, and age. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is the story of two women who share laughter and tears, and swap their confidences, dreams, and fears. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes, and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad. . . "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Bee Rowlatt is a former showgirl-turned-BBC World Service journalist. May Witwit is an Iraqi expert in Chaucer. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad: The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship. A London mum and Iraqi teacher should have nothing in common. Yet now, despite their differences, they're the firmest of friends . . . Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit is a touching and poignant portrait of an unlikely friendship. Would you brave gun-toting militias for a cut and blow dry? May's a tough-talking, hard-smoking, lecturer in English. She's also an Iraqi from a Sunni-Shi'ite background living in Baghdad, dodging bullets before breakfast, bargaining for high heels in bombed-out bazaars and battling through blockades to reach her class of Jane Austen-studying girls. Bee, on the other hand, is a London mum of three, busy fighting off PTA meetings and chicken pox, dealing with dead cats and generally juggling work and family while squabbling with her globe-trotting husband over the socks he leaves lying around the house. They should have nothing in common. But when a simple email brings them together, they discover a friendship that overcomes all their differences of culture, religion and age. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad is the story of two women who share laughter and tears, and swap their confidences, dreams and fears. And, between the grenades, the gossip, the jokes and the secrets, they also hatch an ingenious plan to help May escape the bombings of Baghdad . . . Bee Rowlatt is a former show-girl turned BBC World Service journalist. A mother of three and would-be do-gooder, she can find keeping her career going while caring for her three daughters (and husband) pretty tough, even in leafy North London. May Witwit is an Iraqi expert in Chaucer and sender of emails depicting kittens in fancy dress. She is prepared to face every hazard imaginable to make that all-important hairdresser's appointment. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Bee Rowlatt is a former show-girl turned BBC World Service journalist. A mother of three and would-be do-gooder, she can find keeping her career going while caring for her three daughters (and husband) pretty tough, even in leafy North London. May Witwit is an Iraqi expert in Chaucer and sender of emails depicting kittens in fancy dress. She is prepared to face every hazard imaginable to make that all-important hairdresser's appointment.