Why read The Women of Deh Koh?

Book cover of The Women of Deh Koh

Book description

“Masterful . . . absorbing. This finely written book gives us a whole new sense of Iran.”—The Washington Post Book World

While doing research in the Iranian village of Deh Koh, Erika Friedl was able to quietly observe and record the cloistered lives of women in one of the…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Women of Deh Koh as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Donna Lee Bowen

Author

This book brilliantly depicts life in Iranian mountain villages. Erica Friedl has spent years on and off over decades living quietly among her friends in Deh Koh.

Friedl, an anthropologist, writes with feeling and telling detail as she tells of her friends and neighbors. As I read her “stories,” the women in Deh Koh ceased to be characters in a book but people with concerns that helped me understand how their motivations inspired actions.

I especially loved the story about the woman who was now approaching middle-age and was expected to stop having physical relations with her husband. She loved…

From Donna's list on The best books to understand Middle Easterners and their lives in the Muslim Middle East.