Through interviews with those who managed to escape, Mikhail has created a searing portrait of courage, humanity and savagery, told in a mosaic of voices ... There are many such heroes in these varied accounts, not least the women themselves, and details so astounding that it was wise of the author to include photographs bearing witness to their truth ... one story among many, which together illuminate a human catastrophe that might otherwise be a mere footnote to the still-unfolding consequences of the Iraq war. Mikhail, whose gifts as a poet infuse these narratives with unexpected beauty, is interested in the little things: 'I mean the little things with their big shadows.'
Mikhail’s book serves as testimony for the victims of ISIS (known in the region as Daesh) who have been brutalized physically and psychologically. Giving voice to the voiceless, she devotes much of The Beekeeper to transcribing the stories of the Yazidi women of northern Iraq who have been driven from their homes, sold into sexual slavery, and yet, remarkably, survived ... Everyday heroes populate this landscape, many of them Muslim – that is, regular observant Muslims, not the twisted fundamentalist version that Daesh promulgates ... Mikhail draws out historical parallels as well in displacement resulting from ethnic cleansing, whether in the persecution of Jews, Christians, or Muslims (see Myanmar). Hauntingly, she recalls her grandmother’s best friend, driven out of Baghdad after the Farhud, a pogrom in 1941 when Jews from communities established since the sixth century were murdered during two days of riots ... When Mikhail pauses to reflect on her own experience, she captures the idiosyncratic grace of the world around her, showing herself an acute observer of its oddities and beauty ... Her book compels us to listen to these voices and not change the channel. It compels us to open our doors wider to refugees.
Structurally, this book is a mix of reportage, memoir, and poetry. Mikhail keeps the reportage free from sentiment. Even the memoir sections about her own past experiences in Iraq are relayed from a somewhat cool distance. But her verses show her personal emotional landscape as she tries to wrap her head around what is happening, what might come next for each survivor, and what survival even means 'when the calamity survives along with you' ... A book like this reminds us of this hard truth about the worst aspects of human nature.
Death and despair are never far away: men lined up and shot in large pits that become mass graves; ISIS fighters brandish the severed hands of a water-tanker driver who smuggled cigarettes to an enslaved woman; loved ones lost. Yet it is the courage and resilience of the women that shines through. There are also examples of Muslims putting themselves in danger to help Yazidis, including a seamstress who hid a mother and child on the run. The book serves as a powerful reminder of the brutality of ISIS amid concerns there are signs of a resurgence
The survivors’ stories are relentlessly horrific; words seem inadequate in describing the systematic slaughter, capture, sale, rape, and torture of human beings by other human beings ... Despite the inarguable significance of these survivors’ stories, as literature, The Beekeeper ultimately disappoints. Mikhail’s diary-like presentation, complete with phone interruptions, personal dreams recalled, and ruminations on the universe, feels inappropriately trivial amid the gruesome accounts of hideous inhumanity.
She writes affectingly and well, but newsworthy as it is, her account follows two major books—Cathy Otten’s With Ash on Their Faces and Nadia Murad’s The Last Girl—on the same subject and may be lost in the shuffle. That would be a shame, for it is a meritorious, urgent book that deserves an audience. All but true believers suffer under Daesh, Mikhail makes abundantly clear—but especially women. A powerful study.
