❤️
A story of a girl moving through life in Kuwait (as the Iraqi invasion broke out) to Egypt, and eventually settling in America. A review i saw somewhere found it too 'vulgar' but that served to make the story feel more genuine.
A story of a girl moving through life in Kuwait (as the Iraqi invasion broke out) to Egypt, and eventually settling in America. A review i saw somewhere found it too 'vulgar' but that served to make the story feel more genuine.
This month's pick for the Edmonton Lesbian Book Club, I wouldn't otherwise have known about this funny, charming debut novel published in 2008. Nidali grows up with a Greek Egyptian mother and a Palestinian father. They live in Kuwait and then Egypt before emigrating to the USA. Jarrar brings middle class life in the Middle East into sharp focus with her irrepressible bisexual protagonist.
We rolled the red meat, rice, cumin and oil mixture into triangles of boiled cabbage leaves, placing them in a big pot, and dropped whole cloves of garlic in. When I looked into the pot, the rolls and the cloves reminded me of dashes and commas. I wanted to tell Sitto this but I remembered that she couldn't read or write.
But she could tell stories.
"Sons of the whore!" he said.
"What's wrong?" I said.
"It's Abdel Halim's song."
"It's Jay-Z's song."
... This father-daughter exchange sent me down the Internet rabbit hole:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/21/jay-z-wins-copyright-infringement-...
"Did you tear down my Woman of Wonder stickers?"
He paused for what seemed like an hour, then spoke. "You mean the pictures of the naked heathen that were on your bed?" He adjusted the skullcap on his flat, ugly head. I no longer found Esam handsome; I saw his chin growing warts as he spoke. "Yes, I did," he said.