Yummah
SynopsisPlot
Khadeeja is a child who is forced into womanhood early. She is compelled to marry a man much older than she through arranged marriage and lives a world of hardships from then on. Her mother dies soon after her wedding, leaving her with a husband she hardly knows and two brothers she knows nothing of. Khadeeja learns to love her husband and win his love in return, but just as she thought her life was a beautiful love story her precious son dies from a scorpion bite. Grief and sadness become her new best friends. Her husband, whom she can't live without, abandons her without warning and she is left to raise and support eight children while pregnant with the ninth.
Story
About this book
Yummah follows Khadeeja, a girl in Bahrain whose childhood ends abruptly when she is given in an arranged marriage to a much older man. Shortly after the wedding, her mother dies, leaving Khadeeja with a husband she barely knows and two brothers she has never met. Over time she builds a genuine bond with her husband, and what begins as an obligation slowly becomes a shared life.
That life is tested repeatedly. The death of her young son from a scorpion sting brings deep grief, and before she can recover, her husband leaves without explanation. Khadeeja is left alone with eight children and a ninth on the way, responsible for feeding and raising them with no support. The novel traces how she manages day-to-day survival under these compounding losses, set against the social expectations placed on women in Bahrain across earlier generations.
Sarah A. Al Shafei structures the story around the stages of Khadeeja's life rather than a single dramatic arc. Each phase brings a different pressure, from early marriage to motherhood to abandonment, and the book stays close to the practical realities of each one. The title, Yummah, is an Arabic word used to address one's mother.
