The Rice Mother – Rani Manicka

Saturday, November 5th, 2005

“The desert wants the rain so it may be refreshed, sweetened and admired but the desert needs the sun to know it is a desert. Your mother was the rain in your father’s life but I was the sun. She made him look beautiful and brought out the best in him, but he needed me. Anyway, he knew where to find me.” -The Rice Mother, page 556

After two full days, I finally finished reading Rani Manicka’s debut novel, The Rice Mother. So intense is the storyline, I found myself clenching my fist and gritting my teeth from time to time as I breathed in the wonderful storytelling. Love, betrayal, anger, sorrow, hope, denial, happiness, longing, despair, deceit, infedility, honesty, pain and a thousand other emotions are spun and woven beautifully in this 580 page work of art, spanning a period of 85 years over 4 generations. It’s been a long time since I last read an intense gripping book and I’m glad I brought home this title from the bookshop not so long ago. Highly recommended, this title will surely chart in my all-time favourite list from now on.

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