l`enfant-femme

L’ENFANT-FEMME
Book by
Rania Matar
For her newest
book, L’Enfant Femme,
Lebanese-American
photographer Rania
Matar spent over four
years between the
US and the Middle
East photographing
hundreds of young
girls, ages eight to 13.
Situated side-by-side,
her images evoke the
singular experience
of being a girl despite
obvious religious,
geographic and socioeconomic differences.
The book includes an
essay by Lois Lowry,
author of The Giver, and
coincides with Matar’s
exhibition at East Wing
gallery in Dubai entitled
Becoming: Girls, Women
and Coming of Age.
In her introduction,
fellow Middle Easterner
6
­• NEWS
Queen Noor of Jordan
comments:
“From our first
meeting I sensed a
kindred spirit in Rania
Matar. We are both
women of two worlds,
striving to bridge
the divides between
cultures, both passionate about the rights of
women and those who
are disempowered. She
grew up in Beirut and
moved to America in the
wake of civil war. I am
Arab-American by birth,
raised and educated
in a Judeo-Christian
society before leaving to
work in the Middle East.
I embraced Islam shortly
before marrying... King
Hussein of Jordan. Rania
and I are two among
millions for whom Western and Middle Eastern
“WE ARE BOTH WOMEN OF TWO WORLDS, STRIVING TO
BRIDGE THE DIVIDES BETWEEN CULTURES, BOTH
PASSIONATE ABOUT THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN AND THOSE
— QUEEN NOOR OF JORDAN WHO ARE DISEMPOWERED.” — QUEEN NOOR OF JORDAN
cultures do not constitute mutually exclusive
worldviews destined for
confrontation. Rather,
they combine to shape
who we are and what we
believe...
Matar strips away
the confines of societal
labels from both herself
and the girls she photographs. She exposes the
boundaries of American
and Arab cultures in
order to reconcile them.
Her subjects are not
simply American; they
are not simply Arab;
neither are they simply
Muslim, Christian, or
Jewish. These girls are
simply girls—but much
more besides... L’Enfant-Femme beautifully
illustrates the universality of being a girl and
growing into a woman—
universality, at least, for
that half of humanity
that far too seldom has
its story told at all.”
(Damiani)
ISSUE
•
7