The Furies

A searing portrait of three real-life women who used violence to survive when traditional systems of justice failed them

The Furies tells the stories of three unforgettable women who chose to use lethal force to gain power, safety, and freedom when the institutions meant to protect them – government, police, courts – utterly failed to do so. Brittany Smith, a young Alabama woman, killed a man she said raped her in her home, but was denied a self-defense claim; Angoori Dahariya led a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo fought in a thousands-strong all-female militia that battled ISIS in Syria. Each woman has been criticised for their actions by those who believe that violence is never the answer; yet each has transmuted a story of pain into a story of power.

In luminous prose, award-winning journalist Elizabeth Flock asks searching questions about cultures in which violence seems like the only means of survival, when deeply ingrained ideas about masculinity and women have helped breed the unsafe conditions that women face. The novelistic accounts of these three women offer profound insights into the quest for understanding what a society where women have real power might look like.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Flock is a journalist and the author of Love and Marriage in Mumbai. Her journalism has appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and on the PBS NewsHour, where her investigation into sexual harassment and retaliation in the U.S. Forest Service won an Emmy Award and was nominated for a Peabody Award. A PEN America fellow and IWMF and Pulitzer Center grantee, she lives in Chicago, Illinois.