Leaving the shadow of pain

In this small volume, Doris H. Gray shares her reflections on human responses to trauma - especially when it is kept secret - and on attempts at healing that transcend boundaries. She offers insights on how individuals recover from trauma, in particular when official procedures for redress and professional help are not available. She challenges conventional notions of forgiveness and reconciliation, which often put the pressure on victims to move forward. Most of all, Gray finds that victims' efforts to come to terms with trauma are not disconnected, but are related across time, culture, religion and geography.

Part of this book narrates Gray's personal experiences of growing up with her father, who was a Holocaust survivor, the sudden death of her oldest child, her own rape, and soon thereafter, the death of her husband. She describes how these events shaped her scholarly research, especially that on women who were victims of torture and extreme discrimination during the Tunisian dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (1989-2011). It is the sum of these experiences that lays the foundation for this brave book.