The Tent is a beautifully written, powerful, and disturbing novel,
featuring a host of women characters whose lives are subject to the will
of a single, often absent, patriarch and his brutal, foul-mouthed
mother. Told through the eyes of a young girl, the lives of the Bedouin
and peasant women unfold, revealing the tragedy of the sonless mother
and the intolerable heaviness of existence. Set against trackless
deserts and star-filled night skies, the story tells of the young girl's
relationship with her distant father and a foreign woman who is
well-meaning but ultimately motivated by self-interest. It provides an
intimate glimpse inside the women's quarters, and chronicles their
pastimes and preoccupations, their stories and their songs.