Banana Heart Summer | Merlinda Carullo Bobis
The myth of the banana heart inspires twelve-year old Nenita: she will appease her family's hunger and win her violent mother's love. As she cooks and eats, or dreams of cooking and eating, other love stories unfold in her street, sweltering between an active volcano and a church. It is the hottest summer in the Philippines. It is the 1960s in her small town, reeling with the songs of Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline and the Beatles.