Book description
Love, loss and life are the themes that weave through this tale of
three generations of Muslim women living in suburban South Africa.
Khadeejah Bibi Ballim is a hard-working and stubborn first generation
Indian who longs for her beloved homeland and often questions what she
is doing on the tip of Africa. At thirty-seven, her daughter Summaya is
struggling to reconcile her South African and Indian identities, while
Summaya's own daughter, eleven-year old Aneesa, is a girl who has some
difficult questions of her own. Is her mother lying to her about her
father's death? Why won't she tell her what really happened? Gradually,
the past merges with the present as the novel meanders through their
lives, uncovering the secrets people keep, the words they swallow and
the emotions they elect to mute. For this family, faintly detectable
through the sharp spicy aromas that find their way out of Khadeejah's
kitchen, the scent of tragedy is always threatening. Eventually it will
bring this family together. If not, it will tear them apart.
