Jacqueline St. Joan

My Sisters Made of Light

by Jacqueline St. Joan

A Robin Miura Novel Selection

9 x 6 paperback, 270 pages

ISBN 9781935708063

$19.95

“[Jacqueline St. Joan] brings to her story what she brought to the law, a conviction that life is full of both struggle and purpose and that grace comes to us when we have no reason to expect it."

— Dorothy Allison, author of the critically acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina

"I started reading My Sisters Made of Light, and I could not put it down. It is a powerful story, well presented, well researched, and written with passion. The labor of duty became a labor of love. I read voraciously but have not come across a work which deals so effectively and skillfully with the cultural fault lines of Pakistani society."

— S. Akhtar Ehtisham, author of A Medical Doctor Examines Life on Three Continents: A Pakistani View

My Sisters Made of Light follows three generations of a Pakistani family as they make their way through life in the political, social, and religious maze that is their motherland. This novel pulls readers into the fascinating, heartbreaking, and often terrifying world of honor crimes against women in Pakistan through the life and family history of Ujala. Ujala decides to follow the path for which her mother has prepared her and pushes aside fears for her own safety to help other women escape from the impossible situations in which they find themselves.

Jacqueline St. Joan’s writings have appeared in a variety of print and online media, including Ms., the Denver Quarterly, Harvard Women’s Law Journal, Empire Magazine, the Denver Post, and Thinking Women. She is the coeditor of Beyond Portia: Women, Law, and Literature in the United States and currently teaches at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. Following her travels in Pakistan, she became the Public Education Chair of the Asian American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights, a U.S.-based NGO that works to support Pakistani efforts to end human rights violations. Half of the author’s proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to a grassroots community organization in Pakistan, to pay for the construction of a safe shelter for abused women and children.

mysistersmadeoflight.com

REVIEWS & PRAISE

Sonya Unrein is a freelance editor, designer, and small press publishing consultant living in Centennial, Colorado. After earning a B.A. in English from the University of Colorado at Denver in 2001 and an M.A. in Digital Media Studies from the University of Denver in 2003, she won the Colorado Book Award for her anthology, Open Windows 2006, which she designed, compiled, and edited when she was a co-founder of Denver's Ghost Road Press.

www.sonyaunrein.com