Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing (BQFP) has published the English edition of the novel, The Bamboo Stalk, by Kuwaiti journalist and novelist Saud Alsanousi and translated by Jonathan Wright.
Daring and bold, the novel takes an unflinching look at universal struggles of identity, race and class as they intersect between two disparate societies — Kuwait and the Philippines.
Josephine comes to Kuwait from the Philippines to work as a maid, where she meets Rashid, a spoiled but kind-hearted only son. Josephine, with all the wide-eyed naivety of youth, believes she has found true love. But when she becomes pregnant, and the rumble of the Gulf War growing louder, Rashid abandons her and sends her back home with their baby son Jose.
Masterfully written, the novel won the 2013 International Prize for Arab Fiction, chosen for its literary qualities and “its social and humanitarian content”.
Through his complex characters, Alsanousi crafts a captivating saga that deals with issues of identity, alienation, and the phenomenon of foreign workers in Arab countries.
Alsanousi was born in 1981. His work has appeared Kuwaiti publications, including Al Watan and Al Arabi, and he now writes for Al Qabas newspaper.
His debut novel, The Prisoner of Mirror (2010), won the Laila Al Othman Prize.
Wright studied Arabic at Oxford University and was a journalist for 30 years. He later moved into literary translation, starting with Khaled Al Khamissi’s popular work Taxi.
He has since translated works from across the region. In 2014, he was joint winner of the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for Youseff Ziedan’s Azaseel and winner of the Independent Foreign Prize for Hassan Blasim’s short story collection The Iraqi Christ. QNA
