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THE RED TENT

by Anita Diamant ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1997

Cubits beyond most Woman-of-the-Bible sagas in sweep and vigor, this fictive flight based on the Genesis mention of Dinah, offspring of Jacob and Leah, disclaims her as a mere ``defiled'' victim and, further, celebrates the ancient continuity and unity of women. Dinah was the cherished only daughter of ``four mothers,'' all of whom bore sons by Jacob. It is through daughters, though, that the songs, stories, and wisdom of the mothers and grandmothers are remembered. Dinah tells the mothers' tales from the time that that shaggy stranger Jacob appears in the land of his distant kin Laban. There are Jacob's marriages to the beautiful Rachel and the competent Leah, ``reeking of bread and comfort.'' Also bedded are Zilpah, a goddess worshipper who has little use for men, and tiny, dark, and silent Bilhah. Hard-working Jacob is considerate to the equally hard-working women, who, in the ``red tent''—where they're sequestered at times of monthly cycles, birthing, and illness—take comfort and courage from one another and household gods. The trek to Canaan, after Jacob outwits Laban, offers Dinah wonders, from that ``time out of life'' when the traveling men and women laugh and sing together, on to Dinah's first scent of a great river, ``heady as incense, heavy and dark.'' She observes the odd reunion of Jacob and Esau, meets her cruel and proud grandmother, and celebrates the women's rite of maturity. She also loves passionately the handsome Prince Shalem, who expects to marry her. Dinah's tale then follows the biblical account as Jacob's sons trick and then slaughter a kingdom. Diamant's Dinah, mad with grief, flees to Egypt, gives birth to a son, suffers, and eventually finds love and peace. With stirring scenery and a narrative of force and color, a readable tale marked by hortatory fulminations and voluptuous lamentations. For a liberal Bible audience with a possible spillover to the Bradley relationship.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-312-16978-7

Page Count: 320

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1997

RELIGIOUS FICTION

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THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ

by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018

The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...

An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.

Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowi erer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas . She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942

These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942

ISBN: 0060652934

Page Count: 53

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943

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Reviews of The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

The Red Tent

by Anita Diamant

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• Historical Fiction
• Middle-East (West Asia)
• 17th Century or Earlier
• Jewish Authors
• Strong Women
• Religious or Spiritual Themes

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Book Summary

In the Bible, Dinah's life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. In The Red Tent Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history to create an intimate, immediate connection.

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood - the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers - Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah - the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a damaged youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate, immediate connection.

We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father, Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother. On those rare occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim. Near the beginning of your holy book, there is a passage that seems to say I was raped and continues with the bloody tale of how my honor was avenged. It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for whispering secrets on pillows. Dee-...

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The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

• Publication Date: September 15, 1998
• Genres: Fiction , Religion & Spirituality
• Paperback: 321 pages
• Publisher: Picador
• ISBN-10: 0312195516
• ISBN-13: 9780312195519
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By Anita Diamant New York: Picador, 1997 ISBN # 0-312-19551-6 261 pages

�In the red tent we knew that death dealt with the shadows of birth, the price women pay for the honor of giving life. Thus our sorrow was measured.�

The Red Tent is a marvelous achievement, gripping and revealing, touching deeply the everyday life of people of an ancient time and radically different culture from what we are used to. I would highly recommend the novel to all. Ah, but can one come away still thinking of it as a novel. That�s the trick.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Blurb (from Goodreads):

My Thoughts:

‘The Red Tent’ by Anita Diamant was published about 25 years ago, and was a huge bestseller. I never got around to reading it, though, and so I was intrigued when it was chosen by my book club. I did not know much about it, other than that it’s a retelling of a biblical incident involving a woman named Dinah. My knowledge of the bible is absolutely zilch, and so I came to the story with no expectations whatsoever. Rather to my surprise, I loved it!

Basically, Dinah is the daughter of Jacob, who married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, and had about a dozen sons including Joseph of the many-coloured coat. The red tent of the title is the place where women go when they are menstruating. Men are not permitted within, and so the women wait out their cycle, telling stories, singing songs, and sharing feminine wisdom, including forbidden myths of the Great Gddess. Dinah’s aunt Rachel is a midwife and teaches her the craft. But tragedy strikes when Dinah’s brothers murder her husband and all his people. Dinah’s story then becomes one of recovery from her grief and horror, and the rebuilding of her life in Egypt.  The book has a wonderful rhythm to it, making it impossible to put down, and Dinah’s voice feels urgent and true. A wonderful reinvention of a lost woman’s story.

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The Red Tent

Anita Diamant | 4.29 | 516,461 ratings and reviews

Ranked #10 in Jewish , Ranked #10 in Events — see more rankings .

Rankings by Category

The Red Tent is ranked in the following categories:

• #76 in Ancient
• #76 in Ancient History
• #55 in Archives
• #81 in Book Club
• #68 in Charisma
• #85 in Egypt
• #34 in Historical Fiction
• #30 in History of Christianity
• #33 in Israel
• #11 in Judaism
• #19 in Middle East
• #16 in Midwifery
• #40 in Religion
• #26 in Strong Women
• #72 in Trade
• #22 in Women

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Anita diamant, the red tent.

  Overview

The Red Tent is the story of Dinah, a minor character in the book of Genesis, chapter 34. The brief episode in which she appears is usually referred to as the “rape of Dinah,” a violent episiode that has posed difficulties for biblical scholars over the centuries. Dinah does not say a single word in the biblical text; what happens to her is recounted and characterized by her brothers. In The Red Tent , Dinah tells her own story, and that of the women around her.

The Red Tent is historical fiction, but because it is based on a biblical story, many readers feel a special connection to its cast of characters, whose names echo through the ages right up to 21st century babies named Jacob, Rachel, Joseph and Dinah. Published in 1997, The Red Tent became a paperback best seller thanks to word-of-mouth support. With no advertising budget and few reviews, the book found its audience through the loyalty of readers, the support of independent bookstores, and help from clergy who preached about The Red Tent from the pulpit. The Red Tent – a perennial book group favorite — has been published in 25 countries and in 2014 was adapted as a miniseries by Lifetime TV.

“An intense, vivid novel … It is tempting to say that The Red Tent is what the Bible would be like if it had been written by women, but only Diamant could have given it such sweep and grace.” —The Boston Globe

“Diamant vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans . . . her Dinah is a compelling narrator that has timeless resonance.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“Cubits beyond most Woman-of-the-Bible sagas in sweep and vigor, this fictive flight based on the Genesis mention of Dinah, offspring of Jacob and Leah, disclaims her as a mere “defiled” victim and, further, celebrates the ancient continuity and unity of women. .. . With stirring scenery and a narrative of force and color, a readable tale marked by hortatory fulminations and voluptuous lamentations. For a liberal Bible audience with a possible spillover to the Bradley relationship.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A minor character from the book of Genesis tells her life story in this vivid evocation of the world of Old Testament women. The only surviving daughter of Jacob and Leah, Dinah occupies a far different world from the flocks and business deals of her brothers. She learns from her Aunt Sarah the mysteries of midwifery and from her other aunts the art of homemaking. Most important, Dinah learns and preserves the stories and traditions of her family, which she shares with the reader in touchingly intimate detail. Familiar passages from the Bible come alive as Dinah fills in what the Bible leaves out concerning Jacob’s courtship of Rachel and Leah, her own ill-fated sojourn in the city of Shechem and her half-brother Joseph’s rise to fame and fortune in Egypt. . . . . Diamant succeeds admirably in depicting the lives of women in the age that engendered our civilization and our most enduring values.” —Publishers Weekly

“Skillfully interweaving biblical tales with characters of her own invention, Diamant’s sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent (the place women visit to give birth or have their monthly periods), her mother and Jacob’s three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe. Diamant sympathetically describes Dinah’s doomed relationship with Shalem, son of a ruler of Schechem, and his brutal death at the hands of her brothers. . . . Diamant has written a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating portrait of a fascinating woman and the life she might have lived.” —Library Journal starred review

“This earthy, passionate tale, told also with great delicacy, is, quite simply a great read.” —The Catholic Reporter

Reading Group Guide & FAQ

A READING GROUP GUIDE is published at the back of all paperback editions of The Red Tent.

Frequently Asked Questions

How did you do your research? My research focused on the everyday life of women in the ancient Near East. I consulted rabbinic sources very little and concentrated instead on the food, clothing, social organization, architecture, and medicine of the era –ca. 1500 BCE.

I was the recipient of a library fellowship at Radcliffe College at the Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women, which permitted me access to the entire Harvard Library system. As a visiting scholar of the Brandeis Hadassah Institute, I also had access to the Brandeis library system.

Q&A about The Red Tent

• The Red Tent takes place very much between the lines of the Bible. Could you describe the creative challenges of essentially inserting your own chapter into the Bible, and of giving flesh and voice to biblical characters? Did it intimidate you?

If you take the time to focus on the words on the page of the Bible, you discover that the language is very sparse. The information that contemporary readers expect of a story – or a myth – are missing: What is the weather like? What time of day it? What do the characters look like and what are their motives, what are they thinking?

I wrote The Red Tent as a novel – not as an extra chapter in the Bible. And writing fiction required me to come up with answers to questions like these. I wasn’t intimidated by the process because I did not think of my work as scholarly or theological. I probably would have been far more tentative and worried had I tried to remain in a “faithful” dialog with the words on the page and the story as given and understood within my religious tradition. But from the start, I intended to depart from the text to make the story my own.

We have been lost to each other for so long.

My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust.

This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote, my story a brief detour between the well-known history of my father, Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother. On those rare occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim. Near the beginning of your holy book, there is a passage that seems to say I was raped and continues with the bloody tale of how my honor was avenged.

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The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

I haven’t read a controversial book in a while. When I first saw The Red Tent and read the preview, I was really excited because the main character Dinah, isn’t talked about much in the Bible, and most Christian authors don’t pick her to feature in their sagas. As such, I was interested in how Diamant wove her story and what possible “Christian” morals I could draw. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Here’s a disclaimer, though! When I saw The Red Tent , it was listed as Christian Fiction, but it’s not; it’s religious fiction, and to me, because I approached it from a Christian perspective, I found it offensive, if not borderline blasphemous.

This book is highly sexualized. Again, I have to remind myself that it’s not a Christian book, but taking a biblical story and misinterpreting it like this is just so wrong. I think Christianity has suffered from this in the literary world for so long that it seems normal to us now, especially in African Literature (a discussion for another day). I digress…

The Red Tent was so misleading that at the beginning, I had to stop multiple times to check if it was the same Jacob in the Bible I was reading about. Diamant depicted him as this lustful, arrogant coward but favored soul pursuing four sisters in the house of Laban, who was equally as distasteful in the story. Why were all the shepherds having sex with ewes!? Is this even true factually? Why would God favor such a person???

Questions abound at this point. Jacob is a Jew, and they’re known for their restrictions and laws. If Laban were depicted as greedy, I would have accepted it, but not this. The Red Tent was not a “broadening” of Dinah’s story but an intentional misrepresentation of it.

By the end of this book, you’ll see that all the women were saints and the men beasts. The way the characters of the mothers were represented had no depth at all, and even Joseph was depicted as self-absorbed. I know we all wanted a retelling where Dinah had a happily ever after, but this wasn’t cutting it. You didn’t need to paint men as demons first and women as angels that had to endure their barbaric ways. I also understand that the cultures of that period were harsh and cruel, and the author played that card to her advantage and highlighted all the worst possible scenarios.

I think Diamant meant this book to empower women and showcase the strength and bond between mothers and daughters and their will to thrive, even through secret traditions, but it was a hard miss. You can’t preach love and hate at the same time. The only good thing is that it’s rich in history if you want to see what day-to-day living looked like in those times.

Overall, the story confused me and was very taxing; I struggled to understand why the characters, especially the men, did what they did and why they were all so unreasonable. The book should have a big question mark at the end.

Hi I'm Tega, I am a microbiologist with a lifelong passion for reading, I fell in love with books as child (where I was briefly obsessed with Enid Blyton, lol) reading is simply my escape and hobby and sometimes doubles as therapy for me . My favorite genres are African lit, historical fiction, memoirs/biographies and fantasy. I do beta reading and post book reviews which you can check out on my Instagram @ te_ga_o.

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Book Review: The Red Tent By Anita Diamant

I discovered The Red Tent by Anita Diamant 21 years after it was first published. Yet it seems ageless and as relevant as it was nearly two decades ago, which, while it testifies to the joys of this work, is also a sad comment on the state of women in our society.

The Red Tent is a reimagining of the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, the man who, according to the Bible wrestled an angel and won the name ‘Israel’ and whose 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel. According to the biblical account, Dinah was raped by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite.

The book also says Shechem’s “soul was drawn to Dinah” and he wanted to marry her. Her father and brothers pretended to agree to the proposal and asked only that the Hivites be circumcised. The Hivites agreed and as they lay sore from the procedure, two of Dinah’s brothers, Simon and Levi, killed all the men. Then the other sons ransacked the city and took “All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and made their prey.” This is all we hear of Dinah, who is taken “out of Shechem’s house” by her brothers.

The Red Tent is a bold, rich, and brilliantly written fill-in-the-blanks exercise undertaken by a modern Jewish woman reading the Bible. Rachel was the prettier of the two sisters and the woman Jacob wanted to marry but her father tricked Jacob into first marrying Leah, before letting him marry Rachel as well, according to the Bible. But if Jacob preferred Rachel, how come Leah had six sons and a daughter with him?

Diamant attempts to answer these and similar questions by imagining a world of women, where the men fade into the background. The red tent to which women retire when they menstruate or are ill or for childbirth takes centre stage in this re-imagining. And it is in the words and memories of the women that the story unfolds.

Also read:  How The Iliad And The Mahabharata Have Depicted Women As Catalysts Of War

In Diamant’s world, the competition between the sisters Leah and Rachel fades into the background. The daily ritual of baking, cooking, cleaning, spinning, weaving are interrupted by time in the red tent, where the women bond and sing and celebrate the joys of life and mourn its sorrows, together. Although the Bible  seems to suggest that menstruating women are unclean, The Red Tent celebrates both the onset of puberty (with a ritual that is nearly orgasmic) and menstruation.

The women retire to the red tent and are taken care of and indulged as they rest from their routine. Menstruating women almost seem to be indulging in the ancient Mesopotamian equivalent of a spa day! Contrast this with the period shaming still meted out in our country and it’s easy to see why the depiction of the red tent might inspire wistfulness.

And whether they have borne children or not, the women, by an unbroken association with women who have gone before them are all mothers, nurturing the ones who come after them, caring for the ones who can no longer take care of themselves. It’s a community, a world unto itself, a nurturing world, where knowledge and experience are shared as is pain and suffering. And this knowledge includes an unabashed discussion of the mechanics of sex and truthful acknowledgements of desires, with Dinah’s mothers acknowledging how they feel about Jacob and sharing the details of their wedding nights.

The red tent is the domicile for the mysteries of this world and the women who occupy it are its guardians and secret keepers. Compare this to our reluctance to have healthy and necessary sex education in classrooms  since it does not align with our interpretation of our culture,which might at one time have been just as honest, ribald and joyful about the idea of sex!

By having her women (Rachel, Inna, Dinah, Meryt, Shif-re Kiya) become midwives, Diamant also draws a graphic and visceral picture of childbirth and its many complications. We are taken into the red tent where there is blood and placenta and the realisation that childbirth means a woman’s body becomes “a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test” where “death stands in the corner, ready to play his part.” And after it is over, Dinah “Like every mother since the first mother [is] overcome and bereft, exalted and ravaged. I had crossed over from girlhood. I beheld myself as an infant in my mother’s arms, and caught a glimpse of my own death. I wept without knowing whether I rejoiced or mourned.”

Women’s work is consciously recognised and highlighted in The Red Tent . While the Bible only mentions that under Jacob, Laban’s wealth grew, thanks to the Lord’s blessing, Diamant’s Dinah points out “The family’s good fortune and increasing wealth were not entirely the result of Jacob’s skill, nor could it all be attributed to the will of the gods. My mothers’ labors accounted for much of it. While sheep and goats are a sign of wealth, their full value is realised only in the husbandry of women. Leah’s cheeses never soured, and when the rust attacked wheat or millet, she saw to it that the afflicted stems were picked clean to protect the rest of the crop. Zilpah and Bilhah wove the wool from Jacob’s growing flocks into patterns of black, white, and saffron that lured traders and brought new wealth.”

The Bible lists the birth of Jacob’s sons with his wives, Leah and Rachel, and their maids, Bilhah and Zilpah, explaining the reason for the names. For example: “Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben; for she said, ‘Because the LORD has looked on my affliction; surely now my husband will love me’.” The birth of a daughter though does not merit as much attention and we are offered no explanation for her naming: “Afterwards she bore a daughter, and named her Dinah.” As Diamant’s Dinah notes, she “became a footnote… a brief detour between the well-known history of my father, Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother”.

The book is an attempt to claim her own space. For instance, in The Red Tent , Dinah’s four mothers toss names back and forth and then Leah whispers the name into the infant’s ear, almost as if she has a say in her name – Dinah. In this and other ways, Diamant gives women power over their lives, although it is not without consequences, she tells us.

While the biblical portrayal implies Dinah was raped by Shechem, Diamant imagines a girl who exercises her right to love and to have sex with the man of her choice. Her brothers, portrayed as greedy and jealous, go back on an arrangement that Shechem and his father had with their father and treacherously kill Shechem and all the men in his community. They then drag their sister, who is practically drowning in her lover’s blood, out of bed, tie and gag her and drag her home. Their justification – their sister had been dishonored, a justification that is  still being offered by some families unhappy with their women and girls exercising their freedom of choice.

Traumatised by her family’s betrayal, Diamant’s Dinah leaves home after raining down some impressive curses on her family, especially the men, whom she sees as tacitly if not overtly complicit in the crime. What is amazing about Diamant’s narrative is that after giving birth to her son in a foreign land and being reduced almost to a wet nurse, Dinah finds herself with the help and support of female friends, and at the age of 40, finds love and passion again. A definitive wrenching back of agency by Dinah, who is so marginalised by the Bible that she is forgotten after her brothers exact revenge for her ‘rape’.  

Diamant does not just recast her women with more power and resilience and stronger bonds and greater agency, she makes us question the status accorded to the men, chiefly Jacob and Joseph, exalted characters in the Bible. Jacob, for instance, is shown as changing his name to Israel to try and avoid being associated with the butchery of Shechem. It’s a fall from great height for a character said to have been given the name by the angel he wrestled with!

Everyone remembers the great miracle of Abraham’s god testing his faith and then, when Abraham was ready to sacrifice his only son Issac, providing a ram for sacrifice. Diamant has a lowly maid, Zilpah, point out that this is a cruel god and the incident was not without its consequences since Issac has been left with a stutter for life!    

Diamant has acknowledged the influence of Virginia Woolf , who in A Room of One’s Own imagined a sister for Shakespeare, asserting the identity of the women who disappear from the male narrator’s history. Diamant’s Dinah is the narrator of The Red Tent and she tells her story because she is unwilling to be remembered merely as a ‘victim’ whose ‘honor was avenged’ in bloody fashion.

Her story is for female ears, just as she was, as the only daughter of her father and his four wives, the receptacle of all the stories of her mothers: “And now you come to me—women with hands and feet as soft as a queen’s, with more cooking pots than you need, so safe in childbed and so free with your tongues. You come hungry for the story that was lost. You crave words to fill the great silence that swallowed me, and my mothers, and my grandmothers before them. I wish I had more to tell of my grandmothers. It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.”  

Also read:  4 Feminist Authors Who Subverted The Fairytale Narrative

At the very beginning of The Red Tent , Dinah says, “We have been lost to each other for so long. My name means nothing to you. My memory is dust. This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the word passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing. That is why I became a footnote…” In bringing to light the stories of the women whom history seems to have relegated to the background ( like the women who helped draft our constitution ), we thus perform a holy task, strengthening the links that anchor us to the women who went before us and the women who will come after us. May we always keep telling the tales of the ones at the margins whom history conveniently forgot. 

A bit of trivia: Interestingly, The Red Tent and a subsequent TV series based on the books led to red tent meetings , an opportunity for women to gather and draw strength from one another. And in the aftermath of MeToo, such a gathering of women seems to have evolved as an organic healing process for many here in India too .

Raji makes her living editing copy. She is sorting her thoughts and trying to be a little less ignorant each day.

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Books by Anita Diamant

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The Red Tent: The bestselling classic - a feminist retelling of the story of Dinah Paperback – 8 Mar. 2002

In The Red Tent Anita Diamant brings the fascinating biblical character of Dinah to vivid life. ‘Intensely moving . . . feminist . . . a riveting tale of love’ – Observer Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her fate is merely hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the verses of the Book of Genesis that recount the life of Jacob and his infamous dozen sons. Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent is an extraordinary and engrossing tale of ancient womanhood and family honour. Told in Dinah’s voice, it opens with the story of her mothers – the four wives of Jacob – each of whom embodies unique feminine traits, and concludes with Dinah’s own startling and unforgettable story of betrayal, grief and love. Deeply affecting and intimate, The Red Tent is a feminist classic which combines outstandingly rich storytelling with an original insight into women’s society in a fascinating period of early history. Such is its warmth and candour, it is guaranteed to win the hearts and minds of women across the world. 'I genuinely fell into this rich and colourful world and Dinah and Leah have stayed with me as ancestors and sisters brought to life by Anita Diamant's imaginative novel' - Maureen Lipman. Adapted as a TV mini series starring Rebecca Ferguson and Minnie Driver.

• ISBN-10 0330487965
• ISBN-13 978-0330487962
• Edition Main Market
• Publisher Pan
• Publication date 8 Mar. 2002
• Language English
• Dimensions 13 x 2.5 x 19.7 cm
• Print length 400 pages
• See all details

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About the author, product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pan; Main Market edition (8 Mar. 2002)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0330487965
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0330487962
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13 x 2.5 x 19.7 cm
• 229 in Christian Fiction (Books)
• 263 in Spiritual & Historical Fiction
• 4,613 in Fiction Classics (Books)

About the author

Anita diamant.

In my first novel, THE RED TENT, I re-imagined the culture of biblical women as close, sustaining, and strong despite the fact that, in most ways, they were restricted and vulnerable in body, mind, and spirit. My new book, PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE, takes on women's bodies and freedom in an entirely different way.

When the movie, Period. End of Sentence. won an Oscar in 2019, the film’s producer and founder of The Pad Project, Melissa Berton, told the audience: “A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education.” Inspired by the documentary, I mya collection of essays describes the cultural roots of menstrual injustice and how it erodes self-esteem, limits opportunities and even threatens lives. But the also book celebrates a new generation of activists and innovators working to end period poverty and stigma, and also explores the emerging world of period products, advertising, activism art, and comedy.

When I was a child, the public library on Osborne Terrace in Newark, New Jersey, was one of the first places I was allowed to walk to all by myself. I went every week, and I can still draw a map of the children's room, up a flight of stairs,where the Louisa May Alcott books were arranged to the left as you entered.

Nonfiction, near the middle of the room, was loaded with biographies. I read several about Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, Marie Curie, Amelia Earhart, and Helen Keller, with whom I share a birthday.

But by the time I was 11, the children's library was starting to feel confining,so I snuck downstairs to the adult stacks for a copy of The Good Earth. (I had overheard a grown-up conversation about the book and it sounded interesting.)The librarian at the desk glanced at the title and said I wasn't old enough for the novel and furthermore my card only entitled me to take out children's books.

I defended my choice. I said my parents had given me permission, which was only half a fib since my mother and father had never denied me any book. Eventually,the librarian relented and I walked home, triumphant. I had access to the BIG LIBRARY. My world would never be the same.

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