Author: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Genre: Memoir
Published: 2007
When I read Infidel more than four years ago, Ayaan Hirsi Ali had lost her dutch citizenship and her status as a member of the Dutch parliament. The controversy about her was over the means in which she had acquired her refugee status in the Netherlands and her subsequent citizenship.
My reading of Infidel at the time was not tarnished by any preconceived ideas. Writing about the book now, years later and after a second reading, makes me doubt the legitimacy of the harrowing tale she tells.
Undoubtedly most parts are true, with some creative license, but the second time around I read it as though reading a work of fiction than an autobiography. I still remember how quickly I had read it the first time, wishing for a happy ending to this painful story. She writes with a detached voice about her religion, her forced marriage and her family's flight from war-torn Somali to Kenya, and ultimately the Netherlands for her. She writes of her religion - growing up as a devout Muslim woman, but her tone towards this same religion changes as she grows and moves from Somalia - escaping a forced marriage and the oppressive Islamic society she grew up in. In the Netherlands, living in a largely secular country, her growing criticism of Islam earns her the ire of the Muslim at large.
Infidel is a good read, giving insight into a religion that is at times shrouded in much mystery, and at times much controversy. Hirsi Ali's story is real in giving voice to many untold stories of Muslim women who have to deal with the same circumstances as she did. Despite the controversy surrounding its author, it is a very good read.
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