Alex Poppe’s characters celebrate the fragile grandeur of living an independent life in the aftermath of violence. Deeply rooted in place, these stories are about identity, hope, and redemption as fierce and flawed women rebuild their lives in the wake of war. The young women sparking through these pages are surprising, funny, and devastating: the essence of womanhood.
The title piece, “Jinwar,” is a funny, yet heartbreaking story of an American woman who survived rape in the military, was denied due process, and found herself working in a food truck shaped like a hot dog during the Kavanaugh hearings.
Her struggle to rebuild her life takes her across the globe to the Middle East, to Jinwar, an all-female village in Rojava, northeastern Syria. Here, survivors of war, patriarchy, and genocide un-make violence and search for ways to heal.
Timely and prescient, Jinwar is a story for the #YesAllWoman world.
Modern women creating independent lives in the US, the Middle East, and back again.
Alex Poppe delivers an outstanding collection of stories delving into the lives of deeply powerful, loveable, courageous young women and how their lives are shaped in the aftermath of war. Captivating, poetic, weighty – Poppe’s writing demands to be read.
—Hannah Sward, Queenie Goes to Bosnia and Other Stories and the upcoming Strip
