Author: Dorit Rabinyan
Hudson, MA, U.S.A.
ISBN: 0807614610

Winner of the Yitzhak Vinner Prize (1996)
Two Jewish girls are the center of this first novel, which describes in almost magical fashion the inhabitants of a small Persian village at the beginning of the century. Fifteen-year-old Flora Ratoryan is pregnant, and her cloth-merchant husband has abandoned her. Her 11-year-old cousin, Nasie, consoles her while wishing for her own marriage to Flora's brother, Moussa, to whom she has been betrothed since birth. The story only covers a few days in the lives of these girls, but the background of the inhabitants of this almond tree alley in the fictional village of Omerijan rounds out the picture. Vivid descriptions of cruelty (Miriam Hanoun, Flora's mother, kills cats; Moussa beats Flora unmercifully because he can't stand her laughter) and sensuality mix with the descriptions of everyday life. This may be too heady a mixture for some readers, but the storytelling is superb.?
(Library Journal)

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