The Invisible Middle East

☆ Douban 2025 Book of the Year NO.6
☆ Douban 2025 Book of the Year "Society · Documentary" List, NO.3
☆ 20th "Wenjin Book Award" Nominated Book (Social Sciences)
☆ 2024 Second Annual Olive (Travel) Book Award
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The Middle East boasts an ancient and brilliant history and civilization, yet it is also a mysterious land often hindered by war and conflict.
Amidst the overwhelming historical tides, and behind the pressures of politics, culture, and customs, how do individuals maintain their daily lives in the cracks? How are their lives shaped by the times? How do they view the major events that rewrite history and destiny?
In countries with extreme gender inequality, what kind of life do women lead? To what extent are their lives constrained by gender? How do they view their own living conditions?
Driven by curiosity and questions, author Yao Lu spent four years (2016-2020), overcoming various difficulties, traveling alone to almost all Middle Eastern countries—Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, leveraging the convenience of her female identity and using the unique travel method of "couchsurfing," she deeply immersed herself in 31 unfamiliar Middle Eastern families, integrating into their daily lives. What is particularly rare is that she was able to closely interact and communicate with many local women.
After four years of solid travel and in-depth observation, the author, with this book "The Unseen Middle East," reveals to us a more vibrant and rich Middle Eastern world beneath the news, long obscured by smoke and veils, as well as the fates of individuals, the daily lives of ordinary people, and the living conditions of women in this turbulent and mysterious world.
Author Yao Lu is also a photographer, and the book is accompanied by over 70 high-quality documentary and landscape photographs, complementing and illuminating the text.
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◎ Editor's Recommendation
★ Everyday life perspective, a more authentic and rich Middle East. Unlike focusing on hot news topics such as Middle Eastern politics, war, and refugees, this book's author pays more attention to the daily lives of ordinary Middle Eastern people, long obscured by smoke and veils. Therefore, she lived in various Middle Eastern homes, deeply participating in the daily lives of the Middle Eastern people—attending family gatherings, weddings, celebrating Eid al-Fitr in Iraq, watching football matches in Syria, camping in the desert of Saudi Arabia, etc., presenting a more internal, and thus more vibrant and rich Middle Eastern world.
★ The Middle East from a female perspective, and the group of Middle Eastern women from a female perspective. Almost all tourists venturing into high-risk areas of the Middle East are men, but due to Middle Eastern religion, culture, and customs, it is difficult for men to deeply enter local families and almost impossible to interact with local women and conduct in-depth interviews. As a highly approachable woman, the author used couchsurfing to live in Middle Eastern families, showcasing a rare and valuable female perspective on the Middle East and the group of Middle Eastern women. She addresses issues such as Middle Eastern women's right to education, right to work, and domestic violence, both lifting a rather mysterious veil and presenting lives and inner worlds that are both different from ours and somewhat similar.
★ "High-difficulty travel" and in-depth analysis and reflection. In recent years, very few people have traveled across the Middle East as tourists, especially to countries like Syria and Iraq. For four years, due to war and poor neighboring relations and conflicting visa policies, the author had to frequently adjust her plans based on the situation. This book records various unexpected problems encountered during the author's travels and, through real and vivid stories, provides in-depth analysis and reflection on Middle Eastern history, war, women, and other issues.
★ High-quality landscape and documentary photography. The author is also a renowned landscape and documentary photographer. The book is accompanied by over 70 high-quality documentary and landscape photographs, complementing and illuminating the text.
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◎ Reviews
Yao Lu stumbled into the Middle East, and "the Middle East" was no longer a grand, vague concept.
She saw distinct individuals, vibrant and living beings. Because of similar experiences, reading her words often made me laugh; I completely understood what she was saying, but sometimes she was closer than I was. Our initial intentions for intervening in the Middle East were different; her motivation was an exploration of gender issues. But all roads lead to Rome; a girl comes to know herself by traveling the world.
——Zhou Yijun [Senior International Journalist, author of "Out of the Middle East" and "Life and Death in the Middle East"]
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This is a moving book to read, and for me personally, it was long-awaited—finally, a Chinese person could write such a work!
A Chinese girl, through couchsurfing, entered ordinary families in multiple Middle Eastern countries. She didn't just travel; she lived and felt. With a brushstroke that is both delicate and expansive, especially through the perspectives of different Middle Eastern women whom she deeply understood, she vividly presented history and reality, politics and family, struggle and hope, life and dreams... This is knowledge and experience that general reading cannot provide. I have read many similar works by Western female writers and anthropologists, which were also excellent reading experiences, but I always felt something was missing. Yao Lu's "The Unseen Middle East" fills that gap, meaning she writes with a Chinese perspective and a rather refined style, making her observations and records truly friendly to Chinese readers.
——Zan Tao [Director of Peking University's Turkish Studies Center, Middle East scholar]

2024-11-01

民主与建设出版社

Casting Culture, Single Reading

456

9787513946933