The Woman Who Fell From The Sky: My Year of Making News in Yemen
by Jennifer Steil, HarperCollins, $39.99
Quick quiz - what international figure grew up in Yemen? Name starts with Osama. Next question - where is al Qaeda shifting to from Afghanistan? Most authorities believe this is Yemen. Got
your interest?
Jennifer Steil, a 30-something journalist from New York, secured the job of editor of The Yemen Observer in Sana'a for a year. Her observations are pithy and pertinent. She was responsible for training a group of Yemeni men and women to measure up to international standards of reporting.
The difficulties she faced in these diverse tasks portray a great deal about what life is like in a country that will be of great concern to the West in the near future.
In addition to her editorial tasks, Stein learned about the realities of everyday Yemeni life and attitudes as she was accepted into the lives of people around her - Yemenis as well as expats.
Yet there was one large divide she could not manage well - the antediluvian attitudes separating men and women. Dressed as "black crows" at work, at home the abayas came off (as long as no man was present) and the sensual western-dressed female emerged.
There is a great deal to be learned in this well-written modern-day recounting of an ancient Muslim culture being dragged into modernity.
