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Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women. BY GERALDINE BROOKS. New York: Anchor Books, 1995, 255 pp. $22.95.
As a woman reporter covering the Middle East for The Wall Street Journal, Geraldine Brooks found herself confined to the corridors of high-level offices, shunned by Muslim men, and prohibited from the more adventurous stories her husband, a freelance writer, had no trouble getting. When her secular, Western-educated Egyptian translator suddenly adopted the Islamic veil, Brooks' gender became an asset. She set out to understand why a modern woman would embrace a restrictive, seemingly sexist religious lifestyle....