Kingdoms Mobile
Games and Entertainment
2.0
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Your world is in chaos! Your once great kingdom now fights for its life against a scourge of mighty...
KyBook 2 Ebook Reader
Book and Education
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The best way to read your books ever! KyBook supports all the major e-book formats, OPDS catalogs...
Linked Lexical Knowledge Bases: Foundations and Applications
Iryna Gurevych, Judith Eckle-Kohler and Michael Matuschek
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This book conveys the fundamentals of Linked Lexical Knowledge Bases (LLKB) and sheds light on their...
Salamander Sun and Other Poems
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Pia Tafdrup is one of Denmark's leading poets. She has received the Nordic Literature Prize -...
Going in Style (2017)
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Oscar winners Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby), Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules, Hannah and...
The Oxford Book of English Verse
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Here is a treasure-house of over seven centuries of English poetry, chosen and introduced by...
Star Wars: Doctor Aphra
6.0
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Dr. Aphra teams up with Darth Vader himself in this audiobook original - an expanded adaptation of...
Driving in China
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Foreigners can not just transfer their local drivers license in China. Study for the official exam...
ClareR (6256 KP) rated The Country of Others in Books
Sep 19, 2021
Mathilde falls in love with, and marries, Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan stationed in Alsace. After the war, she sails to Morocco to live with Amine on his family farm. Life is so different to that in France, and Mathilde struggles to adapt. The French there shun her because of her husband, and Moroccans are suspicious of her because she’s French.
It’s a time of great upheaval in the 1950’s, as the Moroccans fight for independence from France, and life becomes increasingly dangerous for the Belhaj’s.
It’s a challenging life for Mathilde: she has to work hard, and Amine has a very fixed idea of a wife’s role. When she doesn’t stick to his rules, voices her opinions or disagrees, Amine beats her - he’s a violent man, scarred by the things that he saw and experienced in the war.
Mathilde does manage to insist that their daughter, Aicha, goes to a good French speaking school, and Aicha proves to be a good, diligent student - but the other girls at school are poisoned by their parents views: they’re very unkind and bully her.
There is a real feel for the heat and dust of Morocco. The contrasting cultures and religions of Christianity and Islam are shown, as well as the roles of women and how they are restricted in the light of their religions and it’s traditions. It looks at what it is to be a foreigner in a strange land; belonging, both in a country and a family; and the Moroccan struggle for independence from France.
This is going to be a trilogy, and I’m already fully invested in it - I can’t wait for the next book. Sam Taylor’s translation is perfect, and I hope that they’ll be translating the subsequent books as well.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for helping me (yet again!) with my NetGalley reading, and to Faber for my ebook copy through NetGalley.
Muslim Dua
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Muslim Dua - 40 Rabanas, Eat/Drink, Prayer, Forgiveness, Hajj,Funeral/Grave,Fasting/Ramadan, Rain,...