NAMESAKE by NS Nuseibeh

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

“‘Kan ya makan fi ‘adim il zaman’, my father would always begin, and then he would tell me a tale of a witch and a princess. ‘There was and there was not, in the depths of the past...’ And sometimes I would find myself daydreaming, in amongst the princesses and the witches, of this ancient warrior woman, my family's namesake, our ancestor, who both was and was not.”

TITLE—Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman

AUTHOR—NS Nuseibeh

PUBLISHED—2024

PUBLISHER—Canongate

GENRE—personal essays / memoir

SETTING—Jerusalem, Palestine & the UK

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—intersectional & multi-faceted identity, ancestral mythology, feminism in Islam, displacement & isolation, the concept of “cultural responsibility,” Motherhood (literal, metaphorical, figural, symbolical), the intimate connection bw Islam/Judaism/Christianity, western imperialism & the insidiousness of imperialist propaganda, academia, reading & finding (or losing) oneself in other’s stories, subversive & revolutionary ways of being, existence as resistance, anger & action (wise-mind)

Premise:

“My intention with this book was to bring certain narratives—Muslim, Arab and Palestinian ones—into the cultural consciousness of those outside the Arab world… to explore… the minor feelings inherent in living those narratives. …reader, whoever you are, I simply hope that whenever you open this book, you think of Gaza.”

My thoughts:

I started this book immediately after finishing Susan Power’s THE GRASS DANCER. The last line of the dedication for Nuseibeh’s book reads “…and for anyone who needs a warrior woman to stand beside them.” It doesn’t get more perfect than that. <3

I absolutely love memoirs & especially memoirs in the form of collections of essays where each one discusses a distinct topic while the main themes of the author’s life & identity run through & connect them all together. Nuseibeh’s book was an easy five-star read for me simply based on her sublime execution of that subgenre of memoir.

However her book goes far beyond examining her own identity as an individual & the history of one of her ancestors—she also writes about the identity of her self as part of many different communities—feminists, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, Brits, privileged folks, academia & publishing, as well as as a friend, a daughter, an aspirant mother, & a descendant—all of which ultimately & inextricably inform the core of who she is as a single person. And in doing so she explores the almost mindbending complexity of identity in a world that tries so hard to fit everyone into clear boxes, affix narrow labels, & corrupted ideas of sociocultural- & religiously-derived morals & values due to a misapprehension (either willful or no) of so much about our shared history as humans.

My favorite essays were interestingly enough the first (“Aubergines”) and last (“Bint”) essays. But “The Seder,” “Ummah/Ma,” & “Tied Tongues” were also stand-outs to me. There wasn’t an essay in this collection however that ought to be skipped as they all work & weave together to form such a beautiful & powerful portrait of a woman--two women—who are just fighting to love & be loved in a world that often seems to prioritize love the least of all.

“‘…I may not be (Arab/Muslim/good/brave) enough,’ I would think, ‘but somewhere deep inside me there is, perhaps, the kernel of someone who is.’”

I would recommend this book to readers who consider themselves to be feminists. I also recommend it to individuals of faith, of diaspora, of multiple heritages, of single heritages, of lost heritage, of no heritage. To mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, family members, community members, descendants, & future elders & ancestors. This book is best read one essay at a time before bed each evening. <3

Final note: This book also added like fifty books to my tbr… 🥵

“Despite her being more myth than woman, she is powerful as a symbol of our yearning for an organic, unencumbered Muslim and Arab feminism. Perhaps, in fact, we need her, and other figures like her, precisely for the myth… If stories are what connect families through time, myths are what remake communities across space. 'The sleeping past’, as Fatema Mernissi writes, ‘can animate the present.’”

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

CW // racism, genocide, police & settler colonial violence (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Season: Shawwāl (شَوَّال)

Music pairing: “Ana ismi sha’b filisteen,” (George Kirmiz, 1981)

Further Reading—

• “Parts Unknown: Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza” (2013)

• “In 2023, nobody knows how to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2013, Anthony Bourdain did.” by Melanie McFarland, published Oct. 22, 2023

• LANGUAGE OF WAR, LANGUAGE OF PEACE: Palestine, Israel and the Search for Justice, by Raja Shehadeh (2015)

• PALESTINE +100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba, edited by Basma Ghalayini (2019)

  • Read my review for PALESTINE +100 here.

• FEMINA: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It, by Janina Ramirez (2022)

  • Read my review for FEMINA here.

• INTIMACIES by Katie Kitamura (2021)

  • Read my review for INTIMACIES here.

• HOOD FEMINISM: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot, by Mikki Kendall (2020)

  • Read my review for HOOD FEMINISM here.

• WHITE MAGIC by Elissa Washuta (2021)

  • Read my review for WHITE MAGIC here.

• THE GRASS DANCER by Susan Power (1994)

• A MASTER OF DJINN by P Djèlí Clark (2021)

  • Part of The Dead Djinn Universe.

  • Nuseibeh discusses the Egyptian feminist movement of the early 20th c. that is featured in Clark’s book which was the first time I had ever heard about it.

  • Read my review for MASTER OF DJINN here.

• WOMAN, EATING by Claire Kohda (2022)

  • The MC’s relationship & musing about the spiritual meaning of food & experience of eating makes an excellent paired reading with the essay “Aubergines”.

• Pragya Agarwal

• Rebecca Solnit

• Melissa Febos

Some of the Palestinian & other Arab authors mentioned in this book:

• Susan Abulhawa (AGAINST THE LOVELESS WORLD)

• Edward Said (‘In Memory of Tahia’)

• Fatema Mernissi (FORGOTTEN QUEENS OF ISLAM)

• Leila Ahmed (WOMEN AND GENDER IN ISLAM)

• Nawal El Saadawi (memoir)

• Abdelwahab Bouhdiba (SEXUALITY IN ISLAM)

• Mona Eltahawy (HEADSCARVES AND HYMENS)

• Susanna Manrubia

• Nur Masalha (THEOLOGIES OF LIBERATION)

• Adania Shibli (MINOR DETAIL)

• Maya Abu Al-Hayyat (YOU CAN BE THE LAST LEAF)

• Emad El-Din Aysha

• Mahmoud Darwish (THE BUTTERFLY’S BURDEN)

• May Ziadeh

• Huda Sha’arawi (HAREM YEARS)

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