Book of Queens: The True Story of the Middle Eastern Horsewomen Who Fought the War on Terror

Anthropologist Mahdavi (Passionate Uprisings) returns with a lively and lyrical chronicle of female freedom fighters in Iran and Afghanistan and the once nearly extinct Caspian horses which they fostered and rode. Mahdavi centers the story around the heroic horsewomen in her own family lineage, beginning in 1920s Iran with her grandmother Maryam. A passionate horsewoman, Maryam was approached by women seeking to escape abusive men in their families, which led to her work smuggling dozens of women and horses across the border into Afghanistan. There they could join a whispered-about all-female army trained on horseback to “protect themselves against the various rounds of invaders.” Maryam’s story intersects with that of equestrian and horse breeder Louise Firouz (1933–2008), with whom she “rediscovered and reestablished the world’s most ancient breed of horses,” the Caspian. Mahdavi charts a free-flowing tale that jumps in time,and includes the experience of a dozen American Army Green Berets inserted into Afghanistan in October 2001 to fight on horseback alongside the Caspian-mounted “women of the cave,” who transfixed the U.S. soldiers with their prowess. This vivid narrative weaves together a surprising array of historical threads to tell a bracingly inspirational tale of women and horses saving each other. (Aug.)