How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
And yet also, as I sit here now, in these halls, in this house of memory, it is not in those days and those moments that my story begins. Rather, it begins for me with the disruption of that world and the desolation that for a time overtook our lives. For it was only then that I'd begin to follow the path that would bring me—exactly here. (5)
As for most of us, Ahmed believes that her life didn't really begin until something of her childhood had been destroyed. But unlike most of us, Ahmed's catalyst is a national upheaval that eventually dismantles her parents' lives—and by association, her own. This is why her autobiography is basically split between global and personal events. Ahmed's identity and her quest to redeem it is shaped by the growing pains of her country as well as by her own struggle to find her place and purpose in life.
Quote #2
These years following my return to Egypt were to be, for me, quite crucial. They marked the end, in important ways, of the enormously privileged life I had until then taken for granted. They changed me forever. At once turning point and crucible, they fundamentally shaped my life and my work and who I became. (13)
You may have already noticed that growing up doesn't really happen all at once, even for those who have suffered a major trauma early on. There are usually a series of watershed moments in each person's life that marks the end of childhood and the beginning of the rest of it.
It isn't that Ahmed didn't know heartache before the end of her undergrad years. It's more that the changes waiting for her in Egypt were now things she had to cope with, as an adult. Her privilege—as a member of the financially solvent, educated upper middle class—has been stripped away by the whimsical behavior of a vindictive government. Her time in Egypt after her return is truly a rude awakening for Ahmed.
Quote #3
I don't know how I would have survived the loneliness of my teenage years without the companionship of such books, read to the sound of only the wind in the trees, alternately dirge and solace. I remember moonlit evenings, leaning on my windowsill, when all that stood between me, the spell of the moon, and the pull of some vast abyss below was a book that I could turn to and bury myself in. (14)
Books are hugely important for Ahmed, who seems to have an academic bent from her early teen years. Interestingly, her beloved books are not by local authors. They're English—and usually male. In her escape from the loneliness of childhood, Ahmed seems also to have escaped her own culture. This is something she will take up later, when she talks about the disappointing reality of a "colonized consciousness"—that moment when you realize that The Man has made you kind of hate yourself.