Bitter Orange Tree

Jokha Alharthi

I spent many of my childhood summers with my grandmother. She would bake bread, dry chili peppers in the sun on the terrace, and tend to her garden. If those weren’t enough, she would sit and knit. Reading Bitter Orange Tree reminded me of my grandmother and the cherry tree she dearly loved.

‍Bitter Orange Tree by Jokha Alharthi is a poetically written book, shifting between a young woman’s experiences in London and the memories of her grandmother’s life. We learn about the life of this young woman, her friends, but most of all, about her grandmother. Her grandmother, who always lived for others and had always dreamed of having a garden or a house of her own, never had those things. Her desires were buried deep within her, much like her tall, strong figure. The young woman in London recalls her with both regret and an understanding that the things she takes for granted were once out of reach for her grandmother, especially in the culture from which she comes.

In its modesty, Bitter Orange Tree is both beautiful and very real.