Eighteen-year-old Daya Raad lives in New York City, the “city of unlimited possibilities. But she has no cell phone, no computer, no friends.
She can only go out of the house to school and the nearest store – Arab girls must behave according to tradition, even if they were born and raised in America. Their main adornment is modesty, and their destiny is early marriage, serving their husbands, and raising children.
Although Daya dreams of going to university, her strict grandparents insist on an immediate marriage. The girl realizes that she is to repeat the fate of her mother, who was once married off and sent from Palestine to America without being asked. But one day Daya receives a letter that gives her a chance to decide for herself what her future life will be.
Itaf Ram was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, to a family of Palestinian immigrants in which she is the eldest of nine children. She holds a Master of Arts degree in American and British Literature from North Carolina State University, where she teaches English and Literature. She is raising two children. “A Woman Is Not a Man is her first book.
