Prisoners of Ritual

An Odyssey Into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa

by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein

Prisoners of Ritual now has an official Web page, maintained by the author. (Click here)

This is an illuminative book... It is also an illustrously fair-minded book. Among writings on genital mutilations, therefore, it is unique in giving the reader a 360 degree understanding of the social and personal significance of such practices. It tells the truth and the truth is devastating. For small girls, it is catastrophically traumatizing. Yet, because the book does not sensationalize, wrath does not override compassion, and the gateway to change is unlocked and kept open. In addition to being a contribution to the scholarship of anthropological sexology, Prisoners of Ritual is an adventure story--- an extraordinary midlife odyssey of a solo woman's desert `walkabout' through the spaces and minds of Nilotic Africa. There's nothing else quite like it!
~ John Money, PhD, Director Psychohormonal Research Unit, Professor of Medical Psychology, and Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

PART I

Chapter 1. The Interviews: Procedure and Rationale
Chapter 2. Female Circumcision if African Countries in General, and Sudan in Particular
Chapter 3. Sudan: The Current Situation
Chapter 4. Episodes and Conversations
Chapter 5. Voices of Reason
Chapter 6. A History of Clitoral Excision and Infibulation Practices in the Western World
Chapter 7. Male Circumcision
Chapter 8. Overview

PART II

Chapter 9. Images
Chapter 10. A Sudanese Odyssey

Appendix I: Interviews with Women
Appendix II: Interviews with Men

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Prisoners of Ritual

An Odyssey Into Female Genital Circumcision in Africa

by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein

Contents

Visit the Female Genital Mutilation Research Home Page