Every human being who reads the book will find someone in it with whom they identify, and there is no end to the potential of such a unifying force.
I Speak for Myself (White Cloud Press, May 2, 2011) is generating buzz in the media and garnering attention from thought leaders across the nation; it’s influencing people and creating dialogue; the book’s rank is rising steadily. All this, and it hasn’t even been released.
Clearly, the book has been required for some time, and now that it’s here, it’s igniting conversation. A lot of people have a lot to say about Islam and American Muslims and American Muslim women. But how many of these people are actually American Muslim women? Four years ago, my co-editor and I perceived that American Muslim women had to contend with not only the labels “Muslim” and “woman” but also other, often negative ones that were perceived as synonymous with the American Muslim female experience. It seemed that they were being spoken for, and there was a clear need for these women to be given a platform to speak for themselves.
The forty women in I Speak for Myself are taking this opportunity seriously. They have not only written honest, moving, introspective pieces about their lives, but they have also proudly proclaimed to the world that this book exists and embraced the responsibility of being spokeswomen. In fact, one of the book’s contributors is Altmuslimah’s own founder and editor-in-chief, Asma Uddin!
The book showcases diversity and loudly sends the message that labels don’t mean much. Every human being who reads the book will find someone in it with whom they identify, and there is no end to the potential of such a unifying force.
The co-editors of the book (myself, Zahra Suratwala, a writer and editor who owns Zahra Ink, a writing firm in Chicago and Maria Ebrahimji, executive editorial producer at CNN in Atlanta) encourage all to jump headfirst into the dialogue by reading the book, sharing the book, talking, thinking, evolving, accepting. The world is changing, one brilliant, articulate Muslim American woman at a time.
Want a copy of your own? Check out http://www.ispeakformyself.com/shop .
(Photo Source: groundswell-mvmt.org)
Zahra T. Suratwala is co-editor of the forthcoming book, I Speak for Myself.
