"Khiva...with its own harsh, merciless laws and customs, its own strange and vicious ways of looking at life",, May 12, 2016

This review is from: The Dancer from Khiva: One Muslim Woman's Quest for Freedom (Paperback)
Probably around a *2.5 for this autobiographical account of an Uzbek woman and her hard life (published 2004.)
Bibish describes her early life in a village near Khiva - her successful school career and her flair for dancing, but also her poor home,widespread disapproval of her dancing and two sexual assaults which she couldn't talk of .
We follow her 'escape' to Russia, her marriage and children and the awful difficulties of getting somewhere to live and to make a living as a market trader. As another reviewer observed, there isn't too much dancing, and as for her Islamic religion, Bibish never mentions it except in the constraints it put on her young life - does she abandon it completely later?
Actually Russia sounded so grim that I kept on wondering why she didn't go back home.
Certainly a harsh life, but not particularly gripping writing. ( )

Uzbekistan

This memoir works in some ways and not in others. Bibish begins her life story with some early brutalizations, moving chronologically through childhood, young adulthood, and to sometime the present. What is effective is the description of village life in Uzbekistan. However, the narrative's trajectory seems fairly random. Why does Bibish no longer dance? Why does she cease to teach? What are her relationships like? What "quest for freedom"? The story, for all its action, is curiously flat and, in the absence of a guiding theme or obtained moral, seems strangely pointless. ( )

This is a different sort of book. It's not fiction, but it doesn't really read like a memoir either. It's the true story of Bibish, an Uzbeki woman who grows up in a tiny village. Bibish is sexually assaulted on more than one occasion, but never tells anyone because in her culture, she would be punished for the assaults. She endures numerous hardships but somehow maintains hope and a desire to escape her difficult life. She loves to dance but is punished for doing so by her family. She makes her escape, which leads to a whole new series of pitfalls.

Although many of the things that happen to her are horrific, there are other, more light hearted aspects of the novel too. When Bibish moves to Russia and sets up a stall in the marketplace, she hasn't quite got the hang of the Russian language and makes some fairly inappropriate, and hilarious, gaffes while trying to talk to customers. The tone of the book is very conversational, almost a cross between a journal and a long talk with a close friend. It's both sad and uplifting, and a clear and personal portrait of one woman's struggle to survive oppression and poverty with her spirit intact. ( )

http://amiralace.blogspot.com/2008/10/dancer-from-khiva.html ( )