Remembering Childhood in the Middle East: Memoirs from a Century of Change

Preface

This book began unexpectedly about ten years ago with the arrival of a childhood narrative in my husband Bob’s mailbox in the anthropology department at the University of Texas. “I heard that your wife was doing a book about children in the Middle East,” said the accompanying letter. “Maybe she would be interested in my story.” I read the account and was both moved and interested. Unfortunately, the book I was working on at the time, Childhood in the Muslim Middle East, was an anthology of social science and historical pieces from scholars in the area. The kind of personal narrative I had received did not fit into such a volume. But I mentioned the piece to several other Middle Eastern friends, and within a month, I had four childhood narratives, all unsolicited , and all very different from each other. I was intrigued enough to start a new project, the book which follows. Life histories have in recent years been set down and published by anthropologists and folklorists, but these works, though valuable, tend to reflect the scholars’ own interests and research rather than that of their subjects. The accounts which follow are different. They were written by the contributors themselves with no guidance from me except as to length, and the events, persons, and landscapes depicted are their choice, not mine. The thirty-six men and women, recounting their childhood memories here, come from fourteen different countries . My husband, the social/cultural anthropologist Robert Fernea, and I have come to know almost all of them personally during our forty-two years of research and residence in the area. They have trusted me to present the accounts, and preface Elizabeth Fernea ^ I feel honored to do so. As teachers, poets, translators, and musicians, they may be seen as “unrepresentative” of the culture as a whole. Yet they are “representers,” and like the wandering bards, minstrels, scholars, dervishes, and storytellers of past ages are carrying messages from one world to another , communicating ideas and feelings to us, a new audience in a strange land. And in the tradition of their own illustrious literary past they are such wonderful storytellers! The transliteration of terms in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish may surprise some readers. In general, foreign words are defined at their first usage, and then not italicized afterward. Some words, titles, and names in common use throughout the Middle East are standardized. But spelling of given names of the authors is left as they themselves wished, as, for example, Leila Abouzeid. Some of the pieces were originally written in Arabic and French; I thank the translators: Amal Chagumoum, Bassam Frangieh, Randa Jarrer, and Aziz Abbassi. Thanks also to Sharon Doerre and Persis Karim, who helped with the editing, and to Virginia Howell, who efficiently and patiently typed and retyped the different versions of the chronicles provided by the authors. Robert Fernea read every word, and, as my severest and most constructive critic, helped shape the accounts and tales into their present form. Thank you once more, Bob. viii Remembering Childhood in the Middle East Remembering Childhood in the Middle East ^ THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK ...