Tale of a Boon's Wife

October 15, 2017
Somalia-born Canadian Kusow's fully immersivesecond novel cracks open the life of a privileged young Somali girl as she realizes, with growing disbelief, that her life is not one of free choice but one restrained by tribe, class, gender, violence, and scandal. Idil is 13 when her father returns from a three-year military training program in the Soviet Union. All at once, her formerly idyllic life as a member of an upper class nuclear family is shattered first by her father's adultery and the ensuing move from the city where she grew up to a small, tribal town. There she meets Sidow, a bright and beautiful boy who is member of the Boon tribe and therefore strictly forbidden to her, a member of the Bliss tribe. As the years pass, Idil and Sidow's love grows, and their continued relationship has a deeply shattering effect on their future. Set against the backdrop of a looming civil war, Idil's story implores readers to question what matters most in this short life: love, security, acceptance, equality, or peace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)