Books

No More Mulberries, Before the Tailban

No More Mulberries        

No More Mulberries Mary’s debut novel is now available.

No More Mulberries is set in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan where British-born Miriam finds her relationship with her Afghan husband, Dr Iqbal heading towards crisis.

From the opening chapters the reader is drawn into Miriam’s family life and her circle of friends, joining her in the clinic where she carries out her role of health worker for the women of the village. It is a life in which Miriam is clearly at home; after spending several years in Afghanistan she no longer feels conscious of the impact of what, to the reader, may seem a strange and difficult existence. However, the problems in her marriage – its silences and evasions – unsettle Miriam’s equilibrium.

When asked by her boss to attend, as translator, a teaching camp for Afghan paramedics and foreign doctors she goes despite Dr Iqbal’s opposition. While there, a friend from her past arrives, urging her to visit his village and the place where she worked some years earlier.
 
Miriam, hoping to understand the reasons behind the conflict in her marriage, makes a journey into her past to confront the devastating loss of her first husband. Gradually she comes to realise how her own actions and attitudes have contributed towards damaging her relationship with Iqbal, and also with her son.
 
Although the story is told principally from Miriam’s point of view, it is also Iqbal’s story. He, too, has suppressed insecurities – about his own losses, about how the leprosy he contracted as a child continues to impact on his life, and about the cultural restrictions he despises yet unwittingly reinforces.

No More Mulberries is about commitment and divided loyalties. It is also a story of love, isolation, coping and learning to live with loss and grief, all of which are further exacerbated by cultural differences, and all set against the shadow of a country moving through the transition from earlier conflict to the new Taliban threat.

Read an extract ...

Available on Amazon here, also available from Waterstones, W H Smith and other bookshops.

Before The Taliban: Living with War, Hoping for Peace

The women of Afghanistan, living in a country long plagued by war and displacement, have also had to struggle with a form of cultural and religious oppression, which makes life immeasurably more difficult.
Mary Smith offers a unique insight into the lives of Afghan women before and immediately after Taliban's rise to power. The reader is granted an opportunity to share these women's lives, their fears and hopes.

Reviews:
‘…is a welcome addition to the volumes on Afghanistan because it concentrates on the
stories of women…Smith portrays women as actors, not re-actors within their culture…’
Joy Hendry in Chapman

…is a book both for and about the women of Afghanistan…describes the array of
different roles and margins of freedom women held in this society …
displays how real women in Afghanistan viewed their predicament...’
Middle East Journal

‘…without a single doubt, one of the best books I’ve ever read on Afghanistan,
community based aid work and the lives of rural women…engaging and stimulating.’
http://clevergirl.ca/journal

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'Her characters are complex with layered pasts (Iqbal's leprosy and the metaphorical and physical scars it has left behind - Miriam's lives in Scotland and with her previous husband) and uncertain futures...

A lovely book which calls for attention.'

Janice Galloway

‘…an intriguing memoir…she found these women willing to learn and to put forward strong opinions and arguments, and she helps to dissolve any stereotypes of passive,
ignorant Afghan women…’

M E Yapp in Times Literary Supplement