About this Book

Asmahan was one of the great Arab singers of the 1930s. She was a woman ahead of her time who defied tradition by breaking free from her traditional family background, leaving her husband, and becoming a public performer, a role much frowned upon then. Perhaps most intriguingly, she was also rumoured to be an agent for the allied forces during World War II. Her story, recounted in this biography, mirrors the cultural and political history of Egypt and Syria between the two world wars as well as the change in attitude in the Arab world towards women as public performers on stage.