On Friday, January 17th 2025 the Book Club in English met at the Sant Gregori library to discuss The Bee Keeper of Aleppo by Christie Lefteri.
The story alternates between the past and the present. The present timeline takes place in 2016 England, where Syrian refugees Nuri and his wife, Afra, are staying at a bed and breakfast while attempting to claim asylum. The past timeline chronicles the years before, when civil war and the death of their child leads the couple to flee Syria and make the long and perilous cross-country journey to England where Mustafa, Nuri’s cousin, is waiting for them. Over many years in Syria, Mustafa taught Nuri the art and skill of bee keeping and together they created a thriving business. In England, Mustafa has created another bee-keeping business and is waiting for Nuri to join him and thereby rebuild their lives. By switching frequently between these two timelines, certain information is intentionally withheld from the reader to create suspense and to portray the disorienting nature of the trauma the characters experience. Using this technique, the author aims to portray the experiences of the refugees from a perspective that tries to be very personal. In writing the story, the author calls on her experience as a volunteer in a refugee centre in Athens and also on her personal experience as a refugee from Cyprus as a child with her parents. While the story and plot were generally well received, there were several negative criticisms of the novel including the unsophisticated quality of the writing and the author’s use of an unusual technique of ending some chapters and beginning others in mid-sentence, which everyone agreed was distracting and somewhat clumsy. The author also chose to narrate the story from the perspective of the male protagonist, which was not always convincing. The theme of the story generated some interesting insights during our discussion including reflections on the rôle of social media in conflict situations and the dehumanising and depersonalising nature of conflict and of bureaucratic processes such as asylum procedures, which the author conveyed well. If you are learning English and would like to practice by reading and discussing a novel in English, please consider joining us.
Ressenya de Sally Jefferies
Ja ho sabeu!!! Us esperem!
