Writer Hassnae Bouazza on her book 'A Suitcase Full of Lemons'

• Date: 24 January
• label.tijd 15:00 - 16:30
• Location: Bibliotheek Schilderswijk

Reading aloud and conversation about mothers, daughters and the comfort of food smells and tastes.

Writer and journalist Hassnae Bouazza will talk about her book Een koffer volcitroenen (A suitcase full of lemons) in the Schilderswijk Library. She will also read excerpts from it and answer questions from the audience. The book, a loving portrait of a mother and her daughter, powerfully depicts the confusing feeling of displacement and the comfort of tastes and smells.

In a cookie store at the Casablanca airport, Hassnae Bouazza realizes that with the sudden death of her mother, she has lost more than just a parent. In A Suitcase Full of Lemons, she describes their loving relationship, the raw pain of loss, the wonderful funeral director with whom the family is saddled, and the search for a happy life without an unmistakable home.

A Suitcase Full of Lemons by Hassnae Bouazza is an intimate portrait of a mother and daughter. About the confusing feeling of rootlessness, theparadox of being “the other,” the power of invisible mothers and the lasting comfort of tastes and smells.'When you grow up in a white village, where you never got the feeling of being accepted, that settles into your DNA. The feeling of contempt, of racism. My mother was my beacon in my life, she provided comfort and security and gave me a sense of belonging. With her, with the world, even though she herself was an outsider.

Hassnae Bouazza (Morocco, 1973) is a journalist, columnist, translator, researcher and program maker. She publishes in various media (including NRC and Linda) and has her own online glossy for burgundy culture lovers, Aicha Qandisha. She compiled a collection of stories about Arab women, Behind the Veil (1999); in 2013 her book Arabs Look, about ordinary people in the Arab world, was published.

Show on map