The Locust and the Bird My Mother's Story

by Al-Shaykh, Hanan

• ISBN13: 9780307472311
• ISBN10: 0307472310
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-06
• Publisher: Anchor

Summary

"One of the most daring female writers of the Middle East" (San Francisco Chronicle) gives us an extraordinary work of nonfiction: an account of her mother's remarkable life, at the core of which is a tale of undying love. In a masterly act of literary transformation, Hanan al-Shaykh re-creates the dramatic life of her mother, Kamila, in Kamila's own voice. We enter 1930s Beirut through the eyes of the unschooled but irrepressibly spirited nine-year-old child who arrives there from a small village in southern Lebanon. We see her drawn to the excitements of the city, to the thrill of the cinema, and, most powerfully, to Mohammed, the young man who will be the love of her life. Despite a forced marriage at the age of thirteen to a much older man, despite the two daughters she bears him (one of them the author), despite the scandal and embarrassment she brings to her family, Kamila continues to see Mohammed. Finally, after nearly a decade, her husband gives her a divorce, but she must leave her children behind The Locust and the Birdis both a tribute to a strong-willed and independent woman and a heartfelt critique of a mother whose decision were unorthodox and often controversial. As the narrative unfolds through the years (Kamila died in 2001) we follow this passionate, strong, demanding, and captivating woman as she survives the tragedies and celebrates the triumphs of a life lived to the very fullest.

Author Biography

HANAN AL-SHAYKH was born and raised in Lebanon. Her novels include Women of Sand
and Myrrh, The Story of Zahra, Beirut Blues, and Only in London, as well as a collection of short stories, I Sweep the Sun off Rooftops. She lives in London.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

1932: Ever Since I Can Remember

It all began on the day that my brother Kamil and I chased after  Father, with Mother's curses ringing in our ears. I hoped and prayed  God would take vengeance on him. He'd fallen in love with another  woman, deserted us, and married her.

Mother had been to court in Nabatiyeh to seek child-support  payments, but it did no good. Kamil and I were hunting for him so  that he would buy us food. We ran over the rocky ground to the next  village where he lived. We searched in the market at Nabatiyeh,  asking people where we might find him. The sound of his voice and his  loud laugh finally led us to him; he was too short to spot in a  crowd, much shorter than Mother. Following her instructions, we asked  him to buy us sugar and meat. He agreed immediately, telling us to  follow him. We tagged along, our eyes glued to his back, terrified of  losing him among the piled-up sacks of burghul and lentils, camels,  donkeys, sheep and chickens, hawkers and vendors peddling their  wares. At times he disappeared and we'd panic, thinking we had lost  him for ever; then he'd reappear and our spirits would soar. Finally  he gave up trying to lose us. He told us that he had no money and  could buy us nothing. He described how to find our uncle's cobbler's  stall near by and then he vanished.

Kamil yelled Father's name as loudly as he could above the vendors'  cries and the bleating of the animals.

'Listen, boy,' said a man selling sheepskins. 'That voice of yours is  about as much use as a fart in a workshop full of metal beaters!'

We made our way back to Mother. She was waiting with her brother at  his cobbler's stall. When she saw we were empty-handed, she frowned  and swore she'd go back to court. We arrived home with no meat, no  rice, no sugar. Mother made us tomatoKibbehwithout meat. She  squeezed the tomatoes and the red juice oozed between her fingers.  Did the tomato pips feel pain and try to escape, I wondered? Didn't  Mother say that Father had crushed her heart?

Mother kneaded theKibbeh.

'Look how red it is, and there's burghul in it, just like real  Kibbeh,' she said brightly.

Like realKibbeh?Who was she fooling? Where was the raw meat to be  tenderised? Where was our wooden mortar and pestle, which I would  recognise out of a thousand? Real Kibbeh? Then why wasn't Mother  extracting those white, sinew-like bits of thread and making a pile  of them, leaving the meat looking like peeled figs?

The next day Mother took us to court and talked to a man called a  sheikh, who wore a turban shaped like a melon.

'My husband's refusing to support them,' she told him, pushing us  forward. 'How am I supposed to feed my children? By cutting off a  piece of my own hand? How am I supposed to clothe them? By flaying my  own skin?'

We listened as the man in the turban talked to Mother. He used one  phrase that stuck in my mind: 'The payment due to you will be sitting  right there, in the middle of your home.' I thought he meant it would  happen literally; I didn't realise it was a figure of speech. The  moment we got home I started pacing the floor, the way I'd seen older  people measure things, even graves. When I'd calculated the exact  middle of our home, I sat by the spot and waited for the lira to appear.

A neighbour came in to offer Mother advice.

'Let him have the children,' she said. 'Stop torturing yourself!'

'Get out of my sight!' Mother yelled, and chased her to the door.  'Before I throw you into the prickly pear bush!'

Needless to say, the money never appeared, not in the middle of the  house or anywhere else. One day, Kamil and I were playing with some  children at

---

Excerpted from The Locust and the Bird: My Mother's Story by Hanan Al-Shaykh
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.