Olive Trees Around My Table : Growing up Lebanese in the Old South Africa

y Olive Trees Around My Table : Growing up Lebanese in the Old South Africa single work autobiography

Author:agent Cecile Yazbek

Issue Details: First known date: 2007... 2007 Olive Trees Around My Table : Growing up Lebanese in the Old South Africa

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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Story of Cecile Yazbek; a Lebanese girl growing up in the fifties and sixties under the shadow of the new apartheid system in South Africa. Shattering events force Cecile to the conclusion that she must leave this society and she seeks refuge in the undulating hills surrounding Australia's Byron Bay. [From Trove]

Notes

From the Foreword: 'Mother tongues: mine were as many as the women who mothered and cared for me. Motherland: the one I was born in was hostile to most of my mothers. I began to wonder about my upbringing and origins and all the languages I had spoken as a child: Arabic with my grandmother, English with my parents, Afrikaans and Xhosa with my nursemaid and other servants; I learnt German at school from the nuns. What sort of identity has that left me with? Where do I really belong?' (n.p.).
Book launched in Sydney at the New South Wales Writers' Centre on 4 November 2007.