The Bamboo Stalk is a retelling of the east-to-west immigrant narrative, but this time it’s east-to-east: a half-Filipino, half-Kuwaiti teen moves from an impoverished life in the Philippines to the “paradise” of his father’s Kuwait. The book is a page-turner, following its narrator through harrowing setbacks, but its depth comes from the way it holds a mirror up to Kuwaiti society, and to Gulf Arabs’ relationship to migrant labour.
The novel received wide acclaim in Arabic, winning the International prize for Arabic fiction in 2013. In Jonathan Wright’s capable English translation, the prose is so fast-moving and guileless that it reads like a young-adult novel, but this lack of sophistication allows Arab readers to re-see Kuwait through the eyes of a callow newcomer, named both Isa and Jose.
The book’s action takes place in Kuwait and the Philippines, but it doesn’t reach past a traveller’s guide engagement with the latter. What matters is Kuwait: who belongs and who doesn’t, who is visible and who is shoved unceremoniously under the carpet.
The social critique sits within the frame of a coming-of-age novel, wherein Isa/Jose negotiates the identity politics of being born half Gulf aristocrat and half poor Filipino labourer. There is a rags-to-riches element that’s reminiscent of Dickens: a good-hearted poor boy searches for his “true” family. But the most interesting part of the story begins after Isa/Jose gets his riches, which bring him more heartache than he could have expected.
The Bamboo Stalk opens in the Philippines, before the narrator’s birth, with the story of his conception being told to him by his mother. The author clearly has a Kuwaiti moral gaze here, disapproving of the prostitution, gambling and marijuana in his protagonist’s background. But the gaze is never a harsh one, and all these “evils” are laid squarely at the feet of poverty.
The simplicity of the language also underscores the narrator’s pointedly naive attitude towards religion, identity and nearly everything about Kuwait. In some cases, this is helpful for the English-language reader, as instead of just reading that someone is bidoon – without citizenship rights – we have it explained for a teenager who’s new to the concept. At other times, the naivety is a bit much, as when Isa/Jose sees bribery and wonders, as though never having conceived of police corruption: “If the police are thieves, what do the thieves do?” Certainly, the shock of Isa/Jose travelling to a “promised land” where he finds not paradise, but a stratified society rife with racism, should be comprehensible to any one, while the reception the narrator receives from his Kuwaiti family is universally heartbreaking.
Yet the undercurrent of Kuwaiti patriotism can sometimes be jarring for the English-language reader. After the ill-treatment Isa/Jose receives from his Kuwaiti family and other assorted bigots, we might well expect him to take his revenge. But he remains gentle and forgiving throughout, even as he is driven out of his own country. To an outsider, it seems inconceivable that this bright boy would suggest, near the end, that he is “perhaps also backward compared with you [Kuwaitis] in many ways”.
The Bamboo Stalk works against the grain of the “coming to a rich country and succeeding” novel. In the end, Isa/Jose has to choose between a difficult life near his wealthy family in Kuwait and a less wealthy one in the Philippines. Even though his happiness is at stake, it’s difficult not to want him to stay in Kuwait, just to stick a finger in his relatives’ eyes.
• M Lynx Qualey blogs at Arab Literature in English (arablit.org). To order The Bamboo Stalk for £13.59 (RRP £16.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
