Asmahan's Secrets Woman, War and Song

Asmahan was the toast of Cairo song and cinema in the 1930s. A Druze princess, she came from an important clan in the mountains of Syria, but broke free from her traditional family background, left her husband and became a public performer. She was also rumoured to be an agent for the Allied forces during WWII. Through the story of Asmahan and her musical career, the reader glimpses not only aspects of the cultural and political history of Egypt and Syria between the two world wars, but also the change in attitude in the Arab world towards women as public performers on stage.