an eye-opener
This is very much a first person narrative and you may find yourself hating it because it is not a comfortable armchair read. The author is a volunteer fighter for a variety of revolutionary forces in Kurdish lands. She is a killer and a trainer of killers. It is fascinating to discover how she became one, to try to understand her thinking as well as the experiences she explains to us.
Joanna Palani is a Danish citizen having come to Europe as a young child when her family sought asylum. She has many western values and privileges but feels at home in Kurdish towns and mountains. She has a very strong belief that it is worth fighting hard for the independence of women as well as for the statehood of Kurds. She enjoys the media spotlight on occasion but has also endured severe privation camping on mountains in the winter and near to starvation when food supplies were blockaded. Her life in some countries is literally in danger from opposing forces.
It is strange to realise many of her decisions, which her family disapproved of, were made when she was a teenager. The writer is brutally honest about her feelings and motives as she grows up. She often reveals aspects which don't show her in a very good light - to European eyes.
This same honesty revels some shocking details of violence and cruelty the writer has encountered and sometimes been the victim of. This powerful story is definitely an eye-opener.
Joanna Palani is a Danish citizen having come to Europe as a young child when her family sought asylum. She has many western values and privileges but feels at home in Kurdish towns and mountains. She has a very strong belief that it is worth fighting hard for the independence of women as well as for the statehood of Kurds. She enjoys the media spotlight on occasion but has also endured severe privation camping on mountains in the winter and near to starvation when food supplies were blockaded. Her life in some countries is literally in danger from opposing forces.
It is strange to realise many of her decisions, which her family disapproved of, were made when she was a teenager. The writer is brutally honest about her feelings and motives as she grows up. She often reveals aspects which don't show her in a very good light - to European eyes.
This same honesty revels some shocking details of violence and cruelty the writer has encountered and sometimes been the victim of. This powerful story is definitely an eye-opener.