Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Q. Fernandes – Review by Jana Teppih

Painting Kuwait VioletPainting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Q. Fernandes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Painting Kuwait Violet by Pamela Q Fernandes is a book that stays with you … it is not one of the ones that you just inhale and enjoy for a moment and then move on to a next one … In some ways I have really hard time to really describe it … I have to say that I had to take breaks when reading it, it left me unsettled and quiet and pondering and … it had been a while since I had read something that so deeply dug into a foreign culture (foreign to me) and the layers of humanity and a world where woman have no say and are supressed and where other human beings are considered subpar … and then mix it with a mystery …
Violet is a young and well educated woman from Goa who takes a position as a maid in Kuwait to pay off her families debts. She starts to work for a wealthy woman Sabah Dashti. In some ways we are given two stories – the story of Violet and her surprising friendship with Sabah in this patriarchal world, and the mystery that shows us abuse and murder and injustice … what a powerful writing!
I cannot get Sabah’s thoughts out of my head as somehow they resonated so deep as it hit close to home … “She knew trust was like paper. Once crushed, it would never be pristine again, to be discarded as worthless trash. Money and status could not restore what she had tossed away”.

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