Women in Translation Book Club: Sisters in Arms (Online Only)

The Women In Translation reading group provides a free, friendly and gentle environment in which opinions are shared and new appreciations can be discovered. A place for curious minds and relaxed conversation hosted by poet and translator Annie Rutherford.

For November the book will meet online to discuss Sisters in Arms by Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin.

The book:

An explosive feminist and anti-racist novel about the importance of friendship. We don’t exist in this world. Here, we are neither Germans nor refugees, we don’t report the news and we aren’t the experts.

We’re some sort of wildcard. Hani, Kasih, and Saya have shared a deep friendship ever since they were kids. After years apart, the three young women meet again for a few days, to pick up where they left off.

But regardless of what they have achieved, it becomes clear, again and again, that they can’t escape the racism that accompanies their daily lives: the glances, the chatter, the hatred, and the outright rightwing terror. But their friendship gives them stability. Until one dramatic night shakes everything up.

Sisters in Arms is a provocative, uncompromising, and moving novel about the extraordinary alliance between three young women and the only thing that makes a self-determined life possible in a society that doesn’t tolerate otherness: unconditional friendship.

Please support the bookshop & the book club by ordering your books through Lighthouse, Use the code LONG-VICTORIOUS-WIT for bookclubbers 10% off.