In A Woman Is No Man, Etaf Rum tackles the sensitive and devastating problem of domestic abuse and women’s oppression in Palestinian culture. This is a topic that Rum admits she was scared to approach because it would upset her community, a challenge she feels female Arab writers often face. In this remarkable novel, Rum draws from her own experiences and writes an unflinching multi-generational story that confronts the reality of the female experience within a patriarchal culture that is also suffering from the unaddressed and neglected trauma of Al Nakba. Rum’s novel is also the story of one young woman’s journey of defying the limited path chosen for her by working towards claiming agency for herself. - Sumaiyya Naseem