Wild Mulberries.

Wild Mulberries.
Rhodes, Fred
208 words
1 July 2008
The Middle East
65
ISSN: 0305-0734; Issue 391
English


WILD MULBERRIES

by Iman Humaydan Younes

published by Interlink publishing

ISBN 9781566567008

price $13.95 paperback

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Iman Younes interweaves the coming-of-age tale of Sarah, a young woman growing up in a small Druze village in the Lebanese Chouf Mountains, with the story of the village itself, especially its role in the production of silkworms, a once important part of the economy that is beginning to decline. Sarah is seeking her mother, who mysteriously disappeared from the village when she was just a small girl. In the course of her search, Sarah reveals the story of her family, her community, and their traditions.

The women tending the silkworms take centre stage in this novel--from Sarah to her respectability-obsessed aunt, whose longings are never realised, to the lively, independent Mut'ia from Syria, to her Armenian refugee neighbour Shakeh who longs to return to her ancestral home.

This novel embraces many themes: the vanishing agrarian life, the control men held over women at the time and the stifling power of tradition and superstition. It is a revealing portrayal of the lives of the villagers in a period of economic depression in Lebanon in the 1930s.