Bitter Almonds

by Taha, Lilas

• ISBN13: 9789927118005
• ISBN10: 9927118007
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-01-19
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Qatar Fndtn Pub

Summary

Omar was born in 1948 in Jerusalem on the day of the Deir Yassin Massacre. To flee the violence, the neighbors, Subhia and her husband immediately whisked him away along with his mother and five-year-old sister Fatimah and reached Damascus. Omar's mother did not survive, and Omar and Fatimah were raised in Subhia's household with their children, although the two families were not blood relatives.

Born into chaos and driven by forces beyond his control, Omar grew up to find his place in the world. He had only one thing to hold on to: a love that propelled him forward.

Nadia, Subhia's daughter, was young and idealistic. Her attempts to be oblivious to the bleak reality of Palestinian refugees in Damascus were thwarted by her cowardly brother. Would she be able to break out of her traditional social mold to create her own destiny?

Heartbreaking and moving, Bitter Almonds is about displacement and exile, family duty and honor, and the universal feelings of love and loss.

Author Biography

Lilas Taha--a writer, an electrical engineer, and an advocate for domestic abuse victims--was born in Kuwait to a Syrian mother and a Palestinian father. After studying electrical engineering at Kuwait University, she immigrated to the U.S. when Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Kuwait. Taha earned a master's degree from the University of Wisconsin. Her first novel was Shadows of Damascus. A Houston Writers Guild member, she lives in Sugar Land, Texas, with her husband, daughter, and son.