Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Shelley Davidow and Shaimaa Khalil, Ultimo Press, $34.99.
“One friend in a storm is worth more than a thousand friends in sunshine.”
— Matshona Dhliwayo, philosopher, entrepreneur, author
This quote is felicitous for Runaways. The two perspectives are atypical, but the underlying message is powerful. Two women. Two cultures. And a friendship that freed them both.
With very different backgrounds, the authors grew up a decade apart, girls in Africa’s north and south. Connected through ‘certain fragments of DNA’; an Ashkenazi Jew from South Africa and an Arab Muslim from Egypt became connected, mostly, through their hearts and their stories.
They bonded, both were new in a strange land. Shelley and Shaimaa met in Doha more than 20 years ago as a teacher and student at Qatar University. Even though they were the most unlikely of pairings, theirs was the most enduring and natural of friendships.
Shelley Davidow is the acclaimed author of 45 books, holds a PhD in Creative Arts and is a senior lecturer in Education at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Shaimaa Khalil is an award-winning journalist.
In a strange land where the silencing and oppression of women is deeply entrenched, they immediately formed a deep and abiding bond.
In this book, they “stitch around the silences, sometimes leaving black holes and voids, hoping to find a place where our female voices are ours, not representative. Between these pages we run away to the end of the world and fall off the edge, off the page. We exchange words and memories, recall what shaped us, what broke us, and we make ourselves whole again through our interwoven story.”
Runaways is an insightful narrative of a friendship that empowered two remarkable women to escape the confines of culture and history. Love and friendship do transcend the boundaries of time and religion. Shaimaa and Shelley remind us of the power of these connections.
