The Bamboo Stalk cover art

The Bamboo Stalk

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Bamboo Stalk

By: Saud Alsanousi, Jonathan Wright - translator
Narrated by: Ben Elliot
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

About this listen

Josephine escapes poverty by coming to Kuwait from the Philippines to work as a maid, where she meets Rashid, an idealistic only son with literary aspirations.

Josephine, with all the wide-eyed naivety of youth, believes she has found true love. But when she becomes pregnant, and with the rumble of war growing ever louder, Rashid bows to family and social pressure and sends her back home with her baby son, Jos. Brought up struggling with his dual identity, Jos clings to the hope of returning to his father's country when he is 18. He is ill prepared to plunge headfirst into a world where the fear of tyrants and dictators is nothing compared to the fear of what will people say. And with a Filipino face, a Kuwaiti passport, an Arab surname, and a Christian first name, will his father's country welcome him?

The Bamboo Stalk takes an unflinching look at the lives of foreign workers in Arab countries and confronts the universal problems of identity, race, and religion.

©2012 Saud Alsanousi. Translation 2015 Jonathan Wright. (P)2015 Audible Studios Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
All stars
Most relevant
I thoroughly enjoyed this book - the story is intriguing, fascinating and very believable, and that's coming from someone living in the Middle East. The English version is rich, with numerous truly 'pause-and-take-that-beautiful-writing-in' moments - hats off to the translator! As for the performance, I give it a 4 because the pronunciation of many of the non-English, especially Arabic words, is cringe-worthy; sometimes I grimaced at the pronunciation errors. I wish the narrator had been guided to more accurate pronunciation. One example is "Eid al Fitr", which he pronounced as "Eid al Fitra", 'fitra' meaning something altogether different. I also found his lilt when said "Assalam aleikum" painful to listen to.

Brilliant First Listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The book was fine, engaging the reader and all the chapters were smooth. However Saud had to spend more time researching before writing the novel.
The Filipino characters are behaving if they were kuwaiti! Women moaning and blaming others in the same way we see it in our houses as Arabs or even on the Tv when watching any Kuwaiti/ Gulf drama.

In addition to that Saud made the Gay character turn straight by leaving her girlfriend saying " I NEED A MAN"! This is what typical Arab wants to read and Saud done the job no wonder he got the prize.

Typical Arab

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.