A beautifully written and suspenseful story of Hussein's Iraq
Gina Wilkinson based this book on her own experiences as a journalist and as a "dependent spouse" living in Iraq during the time Saddam Hussein was in power and during the Iraq War. When the Apricots Bloom is a beautifully written story about three women and how their lives are affected by Saddam's dictatorship.
Ally is the young, naive wife of an Australian diplomat and Huda is a secretary at the Australian embassy. Rania, an artist and gallery owner, is the daughter of a Sheik, who has fallen on hard times since the death of her father and husband. Rania and Huda were childhood friends who have grown apart and reconnect during the story. Ally is searching for information about her deceased mother who worked in Iraq as a nurse in the 70s. Huda has been unwillingly recruited as an informant by the Mukhabarat, Hussein's secret police, to befriend and gather information about Ally. The Mukhabarat have threatened to put Huda's son in the fedayeen, a brutal, atrocious militia. Rania is determined to keep her daughter safe from Saddam Hussein's son, who has his eye on her.
The story is narrated in their alternating points of view and provide the perspectives of a foreigner and two ordinary Iraqi women who must overcome the fear and mistrust, caused by the situation in which they have been placed. The characters were well developed and the reader develops great sympathy for their difficulties as "in Iraq, every friendship is a risk.” The descriptions of the danger and oppression suffered by the people of Iraq are terrifying and heartbreaking. The book touches on the history of Iraq and a better time when Iraq was thriving culturally and politically. Until the Apricots Bloom, is well-written, informative, riveting, suspenseful and highly recommended.
Ally is the young, naive wife of an Australian diplomat and Huda is a secretary at the Australian embassy. Rania, an artist and gallery owner, is the daughter of a Sheik, who has fallen on hard times since the death of her father and husband. Rania and Huda were childhood friends who have grown apart and reconnect during the story. Ally is searching for information about her deceased mother who worked in Iraq as a nurse in the 70s. Huda has been unwillingly recruited as an informant by the Mukhabarat, Hussein's secret police, to befriend and gather information about Ally. The Mukhabarat have threatened to put Huda's son in the fedayeen, a brutal, atrocious militia. Rania is determined to keep her daughter safe from Saddam Hussein's son, who has his eye on her.
The story is narrated in their alternating points of view and provide the perspectives of a foreigner and two ordinary Iraqi women who must overcome the fear and mistrust, caused by the situation in which they have been placed. The characters were well developed and the reader develops great sympathy for their difficulties as "in Iraq, every friendship is a risk.” The descriptions of the danger and oppression suffered by the people of Iraq are terrifying and heartbreaking. The book touches on the history of Iraq and a better time when Iraq was thriving culturally and politically. Until the Apricots Bloom, is well-written, informative, riveting, suspenseful and highly recommended.