AUTHOR: Fartumo Kusow
PUBLISHER: Second Story Press
PUBLICATION DATE: October 10, 2017
PAGES: 376
SYNOPSIS FROM GOODREADS:
A young Somali woman defies convention and clan to marry the man she loves, but must face the consequences.
Despite her family’s threat to disown her, Idil, a young Somali woman, rejects her high Bliss status to marry Sidow, a poor Boon man. Her decision transforms her life, forcing her to face harsh and sometimes even deadly consequences for her defiance of a strict tribal hierarchy. Set in the fifteen-year period before Somalia’s 1991 Civil War, Idil’s journey is almost too hard to bear at times. Her determination to follow her heart and to pursue love over family and convention is a story that has been told across time and across cultures.
MY RATING: Tale of a Boon's Wife is unquestionably one of the best novel I've read this year. This book narrates the hardships of a young Somali girl Idil, from a Bliss tribe, who fallen in love with a Sidow, a Boon guy. The Boon tribe was a lower class tribe in Somalia because they were once slaves to the upper class tribes, such as the Bliss. Due to the difference to the social class, apart from Idil's younger brother Emil, other members of her family strongly opposed her relationship to SIdow. They had no choice but to elope because her parents were planning to marry her to Jamac. From there on, several suffering were experienced by the couple: from drought, civil war, poverty, and death. Women's hardships were clearly described in this novel; the quote in this book, "A man's dirt is his woman's wash, always," is the appropriate representation how women were viewed since then. Until now, some women still experiences this kind of treatment from their husband or partner, especially those who are older. Moreover, being a second class citizen/person of women in a Muslim country were also addressed in this remarkable novel. I love how Idil showed courage particularly in the latter part of the book; I was extremely happy while reading the ending because Idil and her family will finally have a better life away from her father; her older brother Omar and her second wife Rhoda; and from her pursuer Jamac. |
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