Locust and the Bird (Tp/B)

New York, 2001 As Hanan Al-Shaykh Travels Through the Streets of Manhattan to Her Daughter's Wedding Her Mind is Elsewhere. Remembering Own Secret Ceremony Some Thirty Years Ago, Her Thoughts Turn to Her Mother, Kamila, Who Was Sacrificed Into Marriage Her Absent Mother Who, in Recent, Reconciled Years, Has Pleaded With Hanan, Her Daughter the Writer, to Tell This Story. Lebanon, 1934. Kamila is Nine Years Old When She is Taken From the Poverty of Her Childhood Village in Southern Lebanon to Beirut. Though She Has Never Learned to Read or Write, Stories, Poetry and Films Are Her Passion, and She Longs to Go to School. Instead, She is to Lead a Life of Domestic Servitude-And Worse, She Has Been Secretly Betrothed to Her Brother-In-Law, Abu-Hussein, a Man Eighteen Years Her Senior. a Welcome Escape From the Strict Household, Kamila is Apprenticed to Fatme the Seamstress. One Day Kamila Catches Sight of a Beautiful Young Man, Muhammad, Sitting by a Fountain. at the Age of Thirteen, For