''I am from a family of strong women.'
'Amani Haydar suffered the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Five months pregnant at the time, her own perception of how she wanted to mother (and how she had mothered) was shaped by this devastating murder.
'After her mother's death, Amani began reassessing everything she knew of her parents' relationship. They had been so unhappy for so long - should she have known that it would end like this? A lawyer by profession, she also saw the holes in the justice system for addressing and combating emotional abuse and coercive control.
'Amani also had to reckon with the weight of familial and cultural context. Her parents were brought together in an arranged marriage, her mother thirteen years her father's junior. Her grandmother was brutally killed in the 2006 war in Lebanon, adding complex layers of intergenerational trauma.
'Writing with grace and beauty, Amani has drawn from this a story of female resilience and the role of motherhood in the home and in the world. In The Mother Wound, she uses her own strength to help other survivors find their voices.' (Publication summary)
'A memoir of violence that confronts both personal and political dimensions.'
'Amani Haydar’s powerful memoir takes its title from Dr Oscar Serrallach’s term ‘the mother wound’, which describes how ‘the relationship between mothers and daughters is affected by unhealed traumatic experiences passed down matriarchal lines’ (333). In her family, Haydar says, the wounds have been inflicted by male aggression, war and migration (329).' (Introduction)
'Amani Haydar’s powerful memoir takes its title from Dr Oscar Serrallach’s term ‘the mother wound’, which describes how ‘the relationship between mothers and daughters is affected by unhealed traumatic experiences passed down matriarchal lines’ (333). In her family, Haydar says, the wounds have been inflicted by male aggression, war and migration (329).' (Introduction)
'Amani Haydar should have been tucked up in bed that Monday night in March 2015, her arms wrapped protectively around her pregnant belly, her first baby. Instead, she found herself sitting in a dingy interview room at Kogarah police station, preparing to give a statement about why, just a few hours earlier, her father had killed his wife of 28 years and Haydar's mother, Salwa.' (Introduction)
At Home with Amani Haydar
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23449473
2021
single work
podcast
interview
'Amani Haydar is an artist, lawyer and advocate for women's health and safety. Her devastating and yet hopeful debut is The Mother Wound.
'Amani experienced the unimaginable when she lost her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence perpetrated by her father. Writing with grace and beauty in The Mother Wound, Amani shares the stories of her mother and grandmother to help other survivors find their voices.
'Amani was a finalist in the 2018 Archibald Prize, and she uses visual art and writing to explore the personal and political dimensions of abuse, loss, identity and resilience.' (Production introduction)
'It was at a March 2002 camp at the Sydney Academy of Sport and Health where I overheard Steve Jones, who was awarded dux that year, talking about my family.' (Introduction)
