'Manal al-Sharif was born in Mecca in 1979, the year fundamentalism took hold in the Saudi kingdom. In her adolescence, she was a religious radical, burning her brother's CDs in the oven because music was haram: forbidden by Islamic law. By her twenties, she had become a computer engineer, working in a desert compound that resembled suburban America. That's when the Saudi kingdom's contradictions became too much to bear: she was labelled a slut for chatting with male colleagues, she was forbidden to go on business trips unless chaperoned by her teenage brother and while she kept a car in the garage, she was forbidden from driving down city streets behind the wheel. So she took to the streets in a one-woman protest that gave birth to a movement, Women2Drive. When she openly defied the ban on women driving, she was imprisoned for nine days. A YouTube video featuring Manal brought her international exposure. Daring to Drive offers a rare glimpse, from the inside, of women's lives in modern Saudi Arabia. It is a remarkable exploration of resilience and a celebration of female solidarity.' (Publication summary)
