The trip

Running is a state I always live. In my childhood, the energy of life in me would insist and overflow, so I would run. In my adolescence, I ran out of fear of my growing body and the waiting harem. Then I kept running so I wouldn't lose my femininity to the men of my generation. I run to learn, I run to become independent, and I run so my family wouldn't return me to their love and guardianship pen. I run so society wouldn't place me in the pre-determined inferior category for women. And I kept running until running became a second nature to me. And so, since I arrived in America, I also found myself running to ward off alienation; to fulfill multiple academic commitments; in pursuit of quick achievement that would bring me back to Egypt. Radhwa Ashour, in her journey to obtain a PhD in Afro-American Literature from Amherst University in Boston, shares with us the details and memories of the journey, her observations, and her relationships with those around her in a new society she did not approach with neutrality, neither as someone who knows nothing of what is to come, nor like generations of envoys who left and returned infatuated with the lights of imperialism. But she went with the awareness of a fighting Egyptian woman and wife of a Palestinian poet who believes in his cause. Book information: Author: Radhwa Ashour Year of publication: 2015 Publisher: Dar Al-Shorouk Number of pages: 178