Description: The wild ride of a young woman's sexual rebellion in war-torn Beirut.
Review Quotes: Praise for The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing"Actress Al-Joundi's recollections of her unconventional youth in war-torn Beirut are heartbreaking yet humorous... With her direct prose, Al-Joundi never wallows in the horrors or overplays the absurdity, instead striking a perfect balance in this unique account." --Publishers Weekly
"...beautifully taut and relentlessly unemotional... A pitiless, steely narrative, alternately heartbreaking and compelling." --Kirkus "The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing is no coming-of-age tale framed by easy, charming reflections on lessons gained from turbulent times. Instead, it's a feat that runs closer to the bone... The result is profound immediacy. Though readers experience the shock of abuse, even when the "music" stops, there is little doubt about Al-Joundi's ferocious resolve--right up to the promise in the book's final line." --Venus Zine "The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing is an intense, harrowing, and deeply disturbing memoir of a woman's sustained resistance to the world around her. Darina Al-Joundi's story is told with such brutal immediacy, I found myself both moved and frightened. At once personal and historical, the book is the testament of an unrepentant rebel, who, in the end, has no choice but to leave everything and everyone behind her." --Siri Hustvedt, author of The Sorrows of an American "Darina Al-Joundi's personal liberation became a conquest when it coincided with the civil war in Lebanon. To a merciless world she brings a merciless book."--Etel Adnan, author of Sitt Marie Rose "Al-Joundi's book reconstitutes the misadventures of her youth in a style that is at once heart-breaking and very funny."--Nancy Huston, author of Fault Lines