BITTER ORANGE TREE

Narrator Raghad Chaar's performance of this audiobook is mesmerizing. She narrates with music in her voice. Her delivery of the many Arabic words and passages intensifies this nonlinear work. Her deft pacing and cadence give form to the memories and experiences that create the plot. The novel ties together the past life of the solitary narrator, Zuhoor, a student at an unnamed English university, and the vivid remembrances of her grandmother, Beit Amin. The text leaps back and forth in time and location from England to Oman, with stops in Pakistan. The author, winner of the Man Booker Prize, writes lyrically about the lives of women and girls in traditional societies. The listener comes away bathed in the poetry. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2022]