“That is really a David vs. Goliath story, the place David is a girl.”
That’s how Gayle Tzemach Lemmon describes her ebook “The Daughters of Kobani,” which tells how an all-female Kurdish militia in a small metropolis in Syria fought side-by-side with U.S. Special Forces to repel ISIS from the area.
Lemmon will convey this riveting story to life Monday, Jan. 23, when she opens the 2023 Nonfiction Writer Sequence, sponsored by the nonprofit Pals of the Library of Collier County.
The sequence of 4 morning occasions, which raises cash for the Collier County Public Library system, can be on the Kensington Nation Membership in Naples and embrace a full sizzling buffet breakfast. The sequence is bought out, however the Pals does preserve a waitlist. (See information field for particulars.)
Lemmon, whose father fled his native Iraq due to spiritual persecution, has immersed herself within the pressing chaos of armed conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and the remainder of that area.
She was raised in a group of single mothers in Maryland — girls who didn’t graduate from faculty and who labored a number of jobs to assist their youngsters. In consequence, Lemmon has devoted a lot of her profession to documenting how girls’s entrepreneurship and the rise of monetary independence assist battle systemic violence towards girls and women.
All three of her books have been New York Instances best-sellers. “The Dressmaker of Khair Khana” is a couple of younger entrepreneur whose enterprise created jobs and hope for ladies in her Kabul, Afghanistan, neighborhood beneath the Taliban. “Ashley’s Conflict: The Untold Story of a Workforce of Girls Troopers on the Particular OpsBattlefield,” focuses on 1st Lt. Ashley White, a part of an Army unit of ladies handpicked to work on the battlefield alongside Army Rangers, Inexperienced Berets, Navy SEALs and others on delicate missions in Afghanistan.
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With “The Daughters of Kobani,” Publishers Weekly wrote, Lemmon “delivers an enchanting portrait. … This deeply reported account informs and enthralls.”
Lemmon has stated in regards to the fighters in Kobani: “I would like readers to remember the fact that these girls weren’t superhuman. They had been simply strange individuals who occurred to fulfill extraordinary circumstances, and who rose to the problem put in entrance of them.
“I don’t suppose we’d ever seen, collectively, the picture of 30 younger girls carrying fatigues, smiley-face socks, braids of their hair, wielding AK-47s and going off to struggle the Islamic State.”
The creator — at the moment an adjunct senior fellow for ladies and overseas coverage on the Council on Overseas Relations, and beforehand a journalist whose credit vary from ABC News and CNN to PBS NewsHour and Monetary Instances — answered these questions upfront of her Jan. 23 speak in Naples.
Naples Day by day News: Your vivid battle descriptions gave me a dizzy, otherworldly feeling. I sat in my snug Florida residence and examine these men and women combating street-by-street, bullets whizzing previous their heads, to reclaim their cities. Do you get an emotional or cultural whiplash going backwards and forwards between warfare zones and the U.S.?
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon: It is a superb query, and the reply is each. It’s a privilege to spend time with individuals who have confronted down a lot and who’ve lived by way of an excessive amount of inhumanity whereas working to maintain their very own humanity intact. It is usually a problem to maneuver amongst worlds once you understand individuals within the U.S. don’t all the time see the braveness exhibited by individuals combating valiantly every day for his or her communities.
NDN: A putting picture is fight commander Rojda getting her every day cellphone name from her mom, within the midst of battle. How have cellphones, the web and social media modified the best way battles are fought, and likewise how the world regards these conflicts?
GTL: The immediacy and accessibility that expertise allow put everybody inside attain, even when their circumstances are so very totally different. They place totally different circumstances inside attain and shrink bodily distances, even whereas emotional distances stay very a lot in place.
NDN: You conduct a number of interviews to get your depth of element, particularly describing the block-by-block combating in Kobani. However how do you come to see by way of the eyes of your topics, and the way do you belief individuals’s reminiscences for these intimate, first-person recollections?
GTL: It’s one thing I take into consideration a terrific deal — how one can present the world the best way individuals noticed it and to reconstruct a few of the most difficult moments of their lives. A lot is about constructing belief, about asking the identical questions time and again, and about sharing the small particulars individuals keep in mind most.
NDN: What’s the standing of movie and TV diversifications of “The Daughters of Kobani,” by Hillary and Chelsea Clinton’s firm, and of “Ashley’s Conflict,” by Reese Witherspoon’s manufacturing firm?
GTL: Each initiatives are within the strategy of display adaptation with groups centered on telling them with authenticity and care.
NDN: What can we do with Turkey, which is, honest to say, an unreliable ally and aggravation to NATO? Their aggression towards the Kurds has resulted in tens of 1000’s of deaths and continues to this present day.
GTL: Diplomacy and dialog is the important thing to a protected, safe future for your complete area.
Nonfiction Writer Sequence
What: Writer lectures and breakfast that increase funds for the Collier County Public Library system
The place: Kensington Nation Membership, 2700 Pine Ridge Street, Naples
When: Breakfast (a cold and warm buffet) is served at 8:30 a.m.; the authors communicate at 9:15 a.m., adopted by a ebook signing
Writer lineup: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, “The Daughters of Kobani,” Monday, Jan. 23; Amy Gajda, “Search and Disguise: The Tangled Historical past of the Proper to Privateness,” Monday, Feb. 6; Bob Harig, “Tiger & Phil: Golf’s Most Fascinating Rivalry,” Monday, Feb. 27; and Amanda M. Fairbanks, “The Misplaced Boys of Montauk: The True Story of the Wind Blown, 4 Males Who Vanished at Sea, and the Survivors They Left Behind,” Monday, March 20
Tickets: The sequence is at the moment bought out, however the Pals does preserve a waitlist. To be positioned on the waitlist, name Marlene Haywood, the Pals’ Program Director, at 239-262-8135, or e mail her at mhaywood@collier-friends.org. A sequence ticket is $285 for members and $325 for nonmembers. No single-event tickets can be bought. Pals memberships start at $30/yr. For extra info, go to collier-friends.org.
