Hanan al-Shaykh on The Locust and the Bird

Hanan al-Shaykh discusses the life of her mother and presents her book The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story (2009). She was a woman who broke all the rules of a strict Arab society and fought fiercely for her independence and choice. Al-Shaykh describes how her mother was forced into marriage with her brother-in-law, but found solace in a passionate affair with a young student, living two separate lives. The inevitable scandal of this affair is just one of the tumultous events of this woman's life, that was set against the backdrop of the Lebanese Civil War.