Diane's Reviews > Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind

A surprisingly affecting and well written book. I rarely read young adult fiction, but my daughter recommended this one, and I felt I was long overdue to read some more books about Arab or Islamic culture – especially women in the Arab/Islamic world.(My other books include Palace Walk and Reading Lolita in Tehran).

This is the story of a young nomadic girl from the Cholistan Desert on the Pakistan side of the India-Pakistan border. The picture of life in a nomadic society is well drawn – the importance of water, the fragility of life, the need to take everything with you as you move, the fatalistic life view, the power of the landlords. The marriage of a girl of 13 as standard practice comes across as a fact of life, and I enjoyed the description of the nearly year-long preparation for Phulan’s wedding. One of my favorite parts was the annual pilgrimage of the nomadic women – the description of the society of women - it reminded me of some of the passages in the Red Tent and made me long for my close woman companions that I had in North Carolina. I also thought that the author presented the suggestion of changing role for women well – just a suggestion of options. The fact of death and loss were well portrayed although I would have some aspect maternal mortality in childbirth to be included.

The book has an exquisite ending or, more appropriately, non-ending. We do not know what happens to Shabanu. Is she killed for disobedience as the other girl earlier in the story? Does her father relent and allow her not to marry? Is she able to take refuge in Sharma’s house? Are there repercussions for her family because she does not marry the Rahim-sahib? Does she obey her father and marry? We are left to fill in the ending. I loved that.

The book was written in 1989 so I wonder what has changed and if the same nomadic life still exists and if and how the role of woman has changed.