Grit and Grace
Women at Work in the Emerging World
Via photographic portraits and profiles, Grit and Grace celebrates remarkable, resilient women from twenty-five emerging nations, including artisans in Myanmar and merchants in Ugandan refugee camps.
Alison Wright’s vibrant, color-saturated images capture her proud subjects at work, where they meet the camera’s eye with confidence. These are women who rise above “poverty and cultural conventions” via new skills and occupations. Many are assisted by micro-lending funds and nonprofits, like those that help Nepali families to avoid sending their girls away as indentured servants, or those that assist trafficked Indian sex workers in learning to tailor as a means of escape.
Wright’s storytelling is powerful and persuasive. Her descriptions of the individual women’s situations—and of the general statuses of women in countries where sexual, physical, and emotional abuse is endemic—are stark. But such accounts are balanced by the book’s interest in women who have been empowered through their new lines of work; it features success stories, as of a woman-only group of safari guides in Botswana, and of women artisans who work to preserve cherished cultural traditions in places like Oaxaca and Japan.
Grit and Grace is a rich portraiture collection that evokes the power and beauty that is unleashed when women are given greater educational and economic opportunities.
Reviewed by
Rachel Jagareski
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
