Olive Trees Around My Table: Growing Up Lebanese in the Old South Africa

by Cecile Yazbek

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful account of growing up in South Africa in a Lebanese family in East London in the 1950s and 1960s. Very evocative.

[Mary Besemeres · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting. My sister-in-law Naomi gave it to me years ago, but I only read it recently. It's a lovely book in and of itself. Also found it fascinating to compare with other South African memoirs and literature I've read, including the wonderful _Frankie and Stankie_ by Barbara Trapido, similarly from a minority background (Jewish-Dutch and German, rather than Lebanese). (Coetzee's bleakly powerful _Boyhood_/beguiling _Summertime_, Damon Galgut's haunting _In a Strange Room/The Promise_, Gordimer's delicately probing _The House Gun_, Lessing's harsh, compelling _The Grass is Singing_/_Martha Quest_...) And on theme of growing up multi-culturally in Africa, with the stunning memoir of Andre Aciman, _Out of Egypt_, Leila Ahmed's marvellous _A Border Passage_, Penelope Lively's evocative _Oleander, Jacaranda_, Robert Sole's _Birds of Passage_ (which I'm yet to finish)...my favourite, Ahdaf Soueif's epic _In the Eye of the Sun_(and least favourite, Edward Said's _Out of Place_). Even Amos Oz's magical _A Tale of Love and Darkness_ - Israel/Palestine being so close to Africa and Arabic-speaking histories and traumas. Then, of African-Australian memoirs, South-African-born Sisongke Msimang's extraordinary _Always Another Country_; Kgshak Akec's heartbreaking _Hopeless Kingdom_; and before them, Maxine Beneba Clarke's groundbreaking _The Hate Race_, and Sara El Sayed's gorgeous _Muddy People_. Yazbek conveys so much of the historical and personal experience of her Lebanese family in South Africa and then Australia, and her own perspective, as an individual, a woman, an anti-apartheid activist. It's a reminder of how South Africa has historically been a place of many complex ethnicities/cultures, and how multiethnic the supporters of justice and Mandela's ANC were...

[Sonia Gebrael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! A wonderful insight to growing up Lebanese in South Africa, Cecile pays homage to her ancestors and her traditions in a heartfelt way. This is a very honest portrayal of injustices experienced, a story that needs to be told. Readers will enjoy a delightful mixture of Arabic, Afrikaan and Xhosa, a delectable concoction of words.

[Philippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cecile is my fourth cousin. It's exciting to read the work of a relative and learn more about the extended family. I have lent it to other friends who grew up in the eastern Cape and they enjoyed it.