bamboo stem

The events of this novel revolve around a young man who was born to a Filipina maid who works for a Kuwaiti family. She was loved by the only man of this family, Rashid, and he married her in secret from his family. When the family learned the secret of this marriage and the child, they insisted that the husband abandon his wife and child, because this, according to Kuwaiti society, constitutes a disgrace to the well-known wealthy class there. The most important thing to them was reputation, not money, as they say.

Where this young man, Jose, or Issa, grew up in his mother’s home in Manila, in the Philippines, a poor upbringing, waiting for his father to take him to Kuwait as his mother described it to him. He searches for himself or what his person is, his religion, and a country that contains him.