The Bamboo Stalk

One of the best books I have ever read. I found it hard to put down and read it in two days. The Bamboo Stalk is a much needed critique of religious, social, and national identity in the modern Gulf States. The argument that Gulf labor is unfair in not a new but this novel offers a look into why migrant workers continue to flood to the Gulf regardless of the treatment that awaits them. This is a must read for any student who studies the modern Arab Gulf.

This book has an interesting theme of a young man trying to find his place, caught between the worlds of his mother and father. From that perspective, it was an interesting theme, especially because these two worlds were places I am less familiar with, the Philippines and Kuwait. Like a method actor, Alsanousi had to immerse himself in the culture of the country to make himself first feel all its nuances before communicating them to his readers. It was interesting to explore those cultures with him, but I felt the story would have been more poignant with a little more angst and a little less verbiage. I know this book won an International Award for Arab Literature, and as I'm not familiar with the books it was competing against, it is difficult for me to comment here. I do think Alsanousi is a talented writer, so it will be interesting to follow his career as he matures. Lois W. Stern Author/Editor Creator of Tales2Inspire (an Authors Helping Authors project)

Really interesting story, unusual settings in Kuwait and Phillipines. Good readable English translation.

The main character's mom leaves her homeland to work as a maid in a country with a different culture, different language. It's an act that many foreign workers do today. This was a compelling story of the son who grapples with having a Muslim name with a Filipino face. He often finds that he is accepted in neither his father's or mother's homeland as he grows from child to young adult.

Although I grew up in the Arab world, I've never been anywhere near the Gulf, and so that part of the Middle East has always been relatively unknown to me. So I was eager to dive into this prize-winning novel, apparently the first Kuwaiti novel to be translated into English. It's quite ambitious, striving to tackle themes of identity, religion, family, migration, nationality, and love -- all through the story of Jose/Isa, the child of a Kuwaiti man and the Filipinna maid in his mother's house. The book opens with the 30-page backstory of Jose/Isa's mother's journey to Kuwait as a servant in the late 1980s, her relationship with Rashid al-Tarouf, and their forbidden secret love that results in a baby boy who is rejected by Rashid's family and sent back to the Philippines with his mother. The next 130 pages all take place in the Philippines, as Jose/Isa grows up on his grandfather's tiny plot of land on the outskirts of Manilla, with other relatives and a witch-like old woman. It's an effective portrait of impoverished life in which the only real money coming in is from his Aunt's prositution and his mother's remittances, while his grandfather drinks and cock-fights away their money, and Jose/Isa longs for his beautiful cousin and dreams of being recalled to Kuwait by his father. Of course, when he does finally make it to Kuwait, everything is complicated and difficult. One thing that comes across loud and clear in the story is the extent to which family reputation is paramount for many Kuwaitis, and the prospect of a Filipino-faced grandson in the family is simply not to be entertained. The rest of the book traces Jose/Isa's several years as a teenager into a young man in Kuwait, sustained by guilt-ridden allowances from his estranged family, a friendship with his half-sister, and a one-sided email correspondence with his cousin back in Manilla. Along the way, he explores his uncertain faith, the importance of friendships and community (both with Filipino migrant workers and with some young Kuwaiti men who befriend him), and the nature of being partially in several worlds, while not wholly in any. The writing certainly captures Jose/Isa's frustrations and dilemmas, and doesn't try to take the easy or sentimental way out at any point. But it also goes a little heavy on the internal monologuing and the circling back upon the same themes and points gets rather tedious after a while. The book certainly has value as a window into Kuwaiti culture -- the Iraqi invasion plays a prominent role in the backstory, and there are interesting tidbits throughout, such as the diwaniya informal gathering spaces, or the stateless "bidoons" in Kuwait, which I had never heard of. All in all, not the most engaging of writing, but certainly worth considering by readers with an interest in Kuwait, or in the lives of Filipino migrant workers in the Gulf.

Was highly recommended by a friend...I recommend it too!

Went on forever...only finished because it was for bookclub. Redundant

Read as part of a round-the-world challenge, this Kuwaiti novel was quite compelling, following the plight of Filipino immigrant workers in Kuwait. Narrator Jose/ Isa (his Filipino and Kuwaiti names) is the child of a poor Filipino maid by the son of the wealthy family she works for. Pressure from his scandalized grandmother means the maid is sent back home with her child ... but always the vague promise that he can return one day when the time is right. Brought up in poverty, with a horrible grandfather and prostitute aunt, Jose never quite knows who he is. "I was more like a bamboo plant, which doesn't belong anywhere in particular. You can cut off a piece of the stalk and plant it without roots in any piece of ground...the stalk sprouts new roots and starts to grow again in thew new ground with no past, no memory." His mother doesn't press Catholicism on him, convinced he'll become a muslim one day. And then one day he gets to visit his father's homeland... A sad tale which brings out the prejudice and snobbishness of a supposedly religious country. Not the greatest literature, but quite a good read, maybe *3.5