2024 the best female dancer in the world review

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An unforgettable and compassionate look at the lives of the residents of Lahore’s pleasure district

The Dancing Girls of Lahore inhabit the Diamond District in the shadow of a great mosque. The 21st century goes on outside the walls, this ancient quarter, but scarcely registers within. Though their trade can be described with accuracy as prostitution, the dancing girls have an illustrious history: beloved by sultans, their sophisticated art encompassed the best of Mughal culture. The modern day Bollywood aesthetic, with its love of gaudy spectacle, music, and dance, is their distant legacy. But the life of the pampered courtesan is not the one now being lived by Maha and her three girls. What they do is forbidden by Islam, though tolerated; but they are, unclean, and Maha’s daughters, like her, are born into the business and will not leave it.

Sociologist Louise Brown spent four years in the most intimate study of the family life of one Lahori courtesan. Beautifully understated, it turns a novelist’s eye on a true story that beggars the imagination. Maha, at fourteen a classically trained dancer of exquisite grace, had her virginity sold to the Sultan of Dubai; when her own daughter Nena comes of age and Maha cannot bring in the money she once did, she faces a terrible decision as the agents of the Sultan come calling once more.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (July 3, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0060740434
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0060740436
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 0.76 x 8 inches
Reviewer: wvzookeeper
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A very good book about the under-belly of society in Pakistan
Review: A very good book about the under-belly of society in Pakistan; however, it would be so much more interesting if the author had drawn parallels between the "dancing girls" and the equivalent in the western world - who live a life exactly the same - instead, she equivocates them to her own upper class society rather than the under-belly in her own western world. People are people, poverty is poverty, and hopelessness is hopelessness. The most interesting thing in the book is that it reiterated Chris Rock's comedic statement that women would rule the world if they didn't hate each other so much. That is illustrated in this book in graphic detail. If only the women in the same low society class could bond instead of hating and judging each other - they might be able to rise above their station. Again - not that much different than western society. I urge the author to explore this - rather than the fact that prostitution and child slavery exists - as it has since the beginning of time - and expend her time to not only write about it - but try to change this horrible situation.

Reviewer: sana
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Dancing girls of Lahore
Review: I was more eager to buy this book as I had just finished watching Heeramandi on Netflix and there was a lot info out on social media so I had get hold of it.. and it didn’t disappoint.. how the narrator tells the story of Maha is so intriguing..

Reviewer: kathleen czikowsky
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Interesting and complex culture, women's caste in live, hope preservers
Review: I loved getting lost in the world that is this book. It took me far away from life as I know and understand to a far away place where the roles of women and men are most unfair for women and girls. The female power of endurance, to fight for what's yours, to have hope in a world where everything is stacked against you just for being a poor woman. You do what you must to keep on keeping n.

Reviewer: C-Shaw
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I expected there to be some familial love, some care on the part of the mother ...
Review: This is a very interesting book about the lives of the nearly destitute dwellers in the slums and brothels of Lahore, Pakistan in the late 1990s to about 2005. The author is almost too descriptive at times, making my skin crawl at the filth and lack of future which most of these people endure. Ms. Brown herself is not a very sympathetic character: She leaves her home and family in England for a month or two every three or four months and lives mainly with a particular family whose income has been dependent upon prostitution for at least three generations. She recounts their extreme struggles to survive, yet does not seem to do much to help them morally or financially. If she were merely observing from a distance, this might be acceptable, but she becomes a member of the family and therefore I felt she should have shouldered some responsibility for improving their situation. The family's life is amazingly horrid and they are not likeable in the least. Despite their upbringing, I expected there to be some familial love, some care on the part of the mother for her children, some attempt at keeping their hovel livable, but the main-character mother is a totally despicable character. And yet, the book was an interesting story and I "enjoyed" it, if one can say that about reading of the plight of the less fortunate.

Reviewer: Chrisy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Eye opening
Review: I enjoyed reading about Maha and her girls even though their lives seem very sad. Maha was born and raised into prostitution and as her daughters become of age, they are also expected to sell themselves in order to earn money for the family. Even though this life seems so shocking to us as outsiders, to those who live in Heera Mandi, what they do is a totaly normal part of life. At the end of the book, the author, Louise writes about the guilt she feels knowing that in Britain where she is from, "14 year old girls go to school and to the cinema, but Maha's girls who are the same age, dance for men and have their virginity purchased by the highest bidder." Its depressing to know that young girls living in the same period of time in this world have to live very different lives but that is the reality that we live in.

Reviewer: Amester17
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Good idea, but not enough here to sustain the reader
Review: The Dancing Girls of Lahore has a fascinating premise: looking at the lives of dancing girls (prostitutes) in Pakistan. Technically forbidden under Sharia law to engage in sex, these women lead what can best be described as shadow lives -- physically, metaphorically and spiritually in the murky margins of a society in which women have strictly (read: narrowly) proscribed roles. There are some very interesting (and also heartbreaking) bits here -- anecdotes, throwaway lines, etc. But that's the problem, really. We never come to understand what it is exactly that drew the author, British writer Louise Brown, to spend four years (off and on) living amongst the prostitutes of Lahore. As a result, what could have been a really fascinating study of lives not lived becomes a bit of a rag-tag collection of daily anecdotes.I had the strong feeling that this would have made a wonderful magazine piece for, say, The New Yorker. Something with heft and something that would have allowed for 5,000 or even 10,000 words. As a book, however, one begins to feel the lure of skimming as a way through because it all starts to sound the same. We are not engaged enough in the lives of the women profiled; there isn't enough real detail about them, nor is there any sense of genuine dialogue. Descriptions of urine-filled streets, rats in the house, cough syrup overdoses, etc., are not engaging enough over 250+ pages to keep at least this reader emotionally connected and committed.

Reviewer: Doug Pittsnogle
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Favorite!!
Review: I adore this story, albeit quite sad for the subjects. It is impossible to put it down! I read it twice and bought a few extra copies for the library of the prison where I am an adult education teacher for GED preparation. Awareness is important!

Reviewer: Zaidbeela
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: If you're interested in what happens around the infamous Heera Mandi, then this is the book to read. I could not put the book down, I found it educational, culturally knowledgeable and simply a fantastic read. It's emotional and you can't help but feel empathy for some of the characters. Thank you to Louise Brown for gifting the readers with such a fabulous book. I just wish now that there's another one to follow.

Reviewer: TOSHIYA
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: 私は、新品を注文したはずです。表紙は、破れ、二か所に折り目があります。全体に埃っぽく、シミもありました。どうなっているのか、わかりません。AMAZONというのは、そういうところだったのですか？

Reviewer: Huron County
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Brutal.

Reviewer: Julie C
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The author writes with much humanity, out of personal experience and knowledge of the people and milieu she describes. A "great read".

Reviewer: N. A. Latif
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I used to live in Lahore and the book was a bit of a disappointment. And can I say a bit boring. It did not properly convey for me what that city used to be like in days gone by when dancing girls were an important part of the culture.