Songbirds : a novel

Title:

Songbirds : a novel

Author:

Lefteri, Christy, 1980- author.

ISBN:

9780593238042

9780593238066

Personal Author:

Lefteri, Christy, 1980- author.

Edition:

First edition.

Publication Information:

New York : Ballantine Books, [2021]

Physical Description:

320 pages ; 22 cm

Abstract:

"From the prize-winning author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, a stunning novel about the disappearance of a Sri Lankan nanny and how the most vulnerable people find their voices. "It began with a crunch of leaves and earth. So early, so cold, the branches shone with ice. I'd returned to collect the songbirds. They are worth more than their weight in gold." Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the black market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha, who works on the island as a nanny and maid--having left her native Sri Lanka to try to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind and raised by relatives. But Nisha has vanished; one evening, she steps out on a mysterious errand and doesn't return. The police write off her disappearance as just another runaway domestic worker, so her employer, Petra, undertakes the investigation. Petra's unravelling of Nisha's last days in Cyprus lead her to Nisha's friends--other maids in the neighborhood--and to the darker side of a migrant's life, where impossible choices leave them vulnerable, captive, and worse. Based on the real-life disappearance of domestic workers in Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a poignant, deeply empathetic narrative of the human stories behind the headlines. With infinite tenderness and skill, Songbirds offers a triumphant story of the fight for truth and justice, and of women reclaiming their lost voices"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Nannies -- Fiction.

Women household employees -- Fiction.

Foreign workers -- Fiction.

Missing persons -- Fiction.

Foreign workers. (OCoLC)fst01729099

Missing persons. (OCoLC)fst01023702

Nannies. (OCoLC)fst01032605

Women household employees. (OCoLC)fst01734125

Geographic Term:

Cyprus -- Fiction.

Cyprus. (OCoLC)fst01205213

Genre:

Domestic fiction.

Fiction.

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2402552

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Clovis Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Fiction Area	LEFTERI CH Songbir	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Earlimart Library (Tulare Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Fiction Area	FIC LEFTERI CHRISTY	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Fowler Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Fiction Area	LEFTERI CH Songbir	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Merced Main Library (Merced Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Fiction	FIC LEF	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Parlier Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Adult Fiction Area	LEFTERI CH Songbir	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Visalia Library (Tulare Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Fiction Area	FIC LEFTERI CHRISTY	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"A beautifully crafted novel that sits at the intersection of race and class, that flags the frank truth of the life of migrant workers for whom a flight to freedom can become the most finely woven trap."--JODI PICOULT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Two Ways

From the prize-winning author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo comes Songbirds, a stunning novel about the disappearance of a Sri Lankan domestic worker and how the most vulnerable people find their voices.

Living on the island of Cyprus, Nisha is far from her native Sri Lanka. Though she longs to return home, she knows that working as a "maid" for a wealthy widow is the only way to earn enough to support her daughter, left behind to be raised by relatives.

Yiannis is a poacher, trapping the tiny protected songbirds that stop in Cyprus as they migrate each year from Africa to Europe and selling them on the illegal market. He dreams of finding a new way of life, and of marrying Nisha.

But one night, Nisha makes dinner, an aromatic dahl curry, for the family who pays her: Petra and her daughter Aliki. Then, after she cleans the kitchen and tucks Aliki into bed, Nisha goes out on a mysterious errand, and vanishes.

When the police refuse to pursue the case, Petra takes on the investigation herself, a path that leads her to Nisha's friends--other workers in the neighborhood--and to the darker side of a migrant's life, where impossible choices leave them vulnerable, captive, and worse.

Inspired by the real-life disappearance of domestic workers in Cyprus, Christy Lefteri has crafted a poignant, deeply empathetic narrative of the human stories behind the headlines. With infinite tenderness and skill, Songbirds offers a triumphant story of the fight for truth and justice, and of women reclaiming their lost voices.

Author Notes

Brought up in London, Christy Lefteri is the child of Cypriot refugees. She holds a Ph.D. in creative writing from Brunel University, where she is now a lecturer. Her previous novel, the international bestseller The Beekeeper of Aleppo, won the Aspen Words Literary Prize and was the runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She is also the author of A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible, which was longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Reviews (4)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Lefteri (The Beekeeper of Aleppo) spins an affecting if didactic story of a woman's mysterious disappearance from Cyprus. Left to piece together the story of Nisha's absence are those who know her best: Petra, whom Nisha works for as a house cleaner, nanny, and cook; and Yiannis, a poacher, who is in a secret relationship with Nisha. As the mystery unfolds, more is revealed of the life Nisha left behind seven years earlier in Sri Lanka--including her two-year-old daughter, Kumari, with whom she has been able to speak only through Yiannis's iPad in the middle of the night. Meanwhile Yiannis wishes he could quit poaching, but he would suffer violent consequences by walking away from his employers; and Petra, a privileged woman who has never formed a bond with her daughter, begins to realize how she'd neglected Nisha's well-being. Woven throughout are beautiful descriptions of nature, such as the songbirds endangered by Yiannis and other poachers. As the two gradually piece together what happened to Nisha, Lefteri surveys hiring practices that exploit immigrants, as well as law enforcement's dismissiveness toward Nisha's case ("These people don't care about their families.... That's why they are able to come here"). While heavy-handed in its message, the novel is beautifully written and moving. Lefteri's fans won't be disappointed. Agent: Marianne Gunn O'Connor, Marianne Gunn O'Connor Literary. (Aug.)

Kirkus Review

The disappearance of an immigrant working in Cyprus reveals secrets personal and political. Nisha is a migrant worker who left her home in Sri Lanka for a job as a nanny and housekeeper in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. Petra, a well-off optician who is Nisha's employer, is more dependent than she realizes on the nurturing, hardworking nanny. Yiannis, the tenant in an apartment in Petra's house, is having a secret affair with Nisha (which could get Nisha fired or even deported) and has fallen in love with her. When Nisha disappears without warning one night, Petra and Yiannis soon discover they don't know her at all. The novel brings a gradual revelation of Nisha's many secrets, and it uncovers Petra's and Yiannis' hidden pasts as well. Nisha, who left her own young daughter with family in Sri Lanka to find work, was the true mother figure to Aliki, Petra's 9-year-old daughter. Petra's relationship to the child has always been fraught; her husband was diagnosed with cancer weeks after she became pregnant, and he died before the baby's birth. Even before Nisha vanished, Aliki had stopped talking to her mother, and now Petra must examine her parenting. Yiannis left his rural roots behind to become successful in finance but crashed out of that career and now makes a living as a forager of wild foods for restaurants. He also has a lucrative secret occupation: poaching songbirds. Cyprus lies on major migration routes between Europe and Africa, and Yiannis and his fellow poachers catch thousands of the tiny birds with mist nets and glue sticks, then kill them and sell them as gourmet delicacies. Lefteri describes the poachers' methods in disturbing detail, and the birds serve too as a metaphor for human refugees. Petra reports Nisha's disappearance, but the police have no interest in looking for a missing migrant worker, so she searches on her own. Her quest leads her to a world of exploitation of migrants she never knew existed, and she and Yiannis join forces to try to uncover Nisha's fate. Although the book's dialogue can sometimes be stilted or preachy, its characters are engaging and its story moving. This well-crafted novel puts a poignantly human face on often invisible migrant workers. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Nisha walked away from her employer's house one Sunday night and did not return. She had asked for time off her work as a maid, but her employer, Petra, had said no. After Nisha's disappearance, Petra turns the events of the day over and over in her mind, wondering what could have happened. She is not alone in her concern. Yiannis, Nisha's secret lover and Petra's tenant, worries that he drove her away with a proposal the night before. Petra soon discovers that all Nisha's treasures, her passport, and the gold ring Yiannis had offered her remain in her room, and with the police on the island of Cyprus not offering any assistance to find a missing Sri Lankan maid, they try to discover her whereabouts themselves. As the suspicious circumstances mount and Yiannis' illegal poaching activities come into play, Petra realizes that the woman who had been raising her daughter had a life and a history she had never bothered to learn. An aura of menace pervades this unflinching tale of loss and devotion.

Library Journal Review

Petra is an optician in Cyprus whose husband dies just before the birth of their daughter Aliki. Petra hires a maid, Nisha, through an employment agency to keep house and provide childcare. Petra knows little about Nisha's family or background, and sees her as nothing more than a servant, even as Nisha runs the household for seven years and becomes a de facto mother to Aliki. Before coming to Cyprus, Nisha had lost her husband in a mining accident in their native Sri Lanka, and had to leave her home and her own baby daughter in order to earn an income. When Nisha suddenly disappears from Cyprus, there is initially little concern. No alarm is raised; no action is taken. Eventually, Petra begins to investigate and discovers how little she knows about Nisha. Then other immigrant maids go missing and Cyprus's police refuse to help, which raises questions on a far wider and systemic scale. VERDICT Lefteri (The Beekeeper of Aleppo) describes income disparity, predatory employment agencies, the mistreatment of workers, and how those who have the duty to protect and defend often casually shrug off that responsibility. Her characters are compelling and sometimes infuriatingly mired in their own oblivion. Readers interested in social inequities, human relations, and social justice will find this a good read. Recommended.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Excerpts

Yiannis One day, Nisha vanished and turned to gold. She turned to gold in the eyes of the creature that stood before me. She turned to gold in the morning sky and in the music of the birds. Later, in the shimmering melody of the maid from Vietnam who sang at Theo's restaurant. Later still, in the faces and voices of all the maids that flowed along the streets like a turbulent river of anger, demanding to be seen and heard. This is where Nisha exists. But let's go back. We need to go back. Petra The day Nisha disappeared we went to the mountains. The three of us put on our hiking boots and waited for the bus that goes up to Troodos, which comes just twice a day. Nisha would normally go out on her own on Sundays but this time, for the first time, she decided to come along with Aliki and me. Oh, it was beautiful up there! The autumn mist mingled with the ferns and pines and twisted oaks. These mountains rose from the sea when the African and European tectonic plates collided. You can even see the Earth's oceanic crust. The rock formations, with their veins and lava pillows, look like they are wearing snake skins. I love thinking about beginnings. Like that story my aunt used to tell in the back garden: When the Creator finished his creation of the world--Petra, are you listening?!--he shook the remaining clumps of clay from his hands and they fell to the sea and formed this island. Yes, I love thinking about beginnings. I don't like endings, though I suppose I'm like most people in that. An ending can be staring you right in the face without your knowing it. Like the last cup of coffee you have with someone when you thought there would be many more. Aliki played with leaves as Nisha and I sat beneath the heater at one of the small taverns on the trail we were taking, and drank coffee. I remember the conversation we had. Nisha had been unusually quiet, stirring her coffee for some time without drinking it. "Madam," she said, suddenly, "I have a question to ask." I nodded and waited while she shifted in her seat. "I would like to take tonight off to--" "But Nisha, you had the whole day off!" She didn't speak again for a while. Aliki was gathering armfuls of the leaves and placing them on a bench. We both watched her. Nisha had decided to spend her free day with us, to join Aliki and me on this trip. I shouldn't be expected to give her more time off. "Nisha," I said, "you have all day off on Sunday. In the evening, you have things to do. You need to help Aliki get her bag ready for school, and then put her to bed." "Madam, many of the other women have Sunday night off too." She said this slowly. "I know for a fact that other women are not allowed to go gallivanting around at night." She acted like she hadn't heard this and said, "And I don't think madam has plans tonight," giving me a sly look before returning her gaze to the coffee. "So maybe madam could put Aliki to bed just for tonight? I will do extra duties next Sunday to make up for it." I was about to ask her where she intended to go; what was so important that she was willing to disrupt our routine. Perhaps she saw the disapproving look in my eyes, but there was no time for either of us to say anything because at that moment an avalanche of leaves was released over our heads. Nisha screeched, making a pantomime of it, waving her hands in the air and chasing Aliki, who was slipping away down a path that led into the woods. I could hear them after a while in the forest, like two children, laughing and playing, while I drank my coffee. By the time we got home that evening, Nisha hadn't mentioned again taking the night off. She made dhal curry, and the house filled with the smell of onions and green chilies, cumin, turmeric, fenugreek, and curry leaves. I looked over her shoulder as she sautéed the onions and combined the spices with the split red lentils, finally adding a splash of coconut milk. My mouth was watering. Nisha knew this was my favorite dish. I lit the fire in the living room. It had rained earlier that afternoon and from the living-room window I could see that Yiakoumi opposite had his canopy open, and the cobbled streets glimmered beneath the warm lights of his antiques shop. We do not have central heating, so we sat as close as we could to the flames with the bowls of dhal curry on our laps. Nisha brought me a glass of sweet zivania--the aromatic type with caramel and muscat, so warming on this chilly night--and tested Aliki on the nine times table. "Seven times nine?" Nisha said. "Sixty-three!" "Good. Nine times nine?" "Eighty-one! And there's no point in doing this." "Why not?" "I know them." "But you haven't practiced." "I don't need to. You just have to see the pattern. If you ask me what seven times nine is, I will know that the answer begins with a six. I know that the second number is always one lower than the previous one. So, eight times nine is seventy-two." "You're too cheeky for your own good, you know? I'm going to test you anyway." "Go ahead. If it helps you." Aliki sighed and shrugged as if she had resigned herself to this pointless fate of learning something that she already knew. She had every bit the spunk of a nine-year-old girl. Yes, I remember it all very well, the way that Aliki was munching and yawning and shouting out the answers, the way that Nisha kept her attention on my daughter, saying hardly a word to me. The TV flickered in the background. The news was on with the volume turned low: footage of refugees rescued by coast guards off one of the Greek islands. An image of a child being carried to the shore. I would have forgotten all of this, but I have been over it again and again, like retracing footsteps in the sand when you have lost something precious. Aliki lay on her back and kicked her legs up in the air. "Sit up," Nisha scolded, "or you will be sick in your mouth. You've just eaten." Aliki made a face but she listened: she perched on the sofa and watched TV, her eyes moving over the faces of people as they trudged out of the water. Nisha refilled my glass for the third time, and I was starting to get sleepy. I looked at my daughter then; a monster of a child, she's always been too big for me, even her curly hair is too thick for me to get my hands around. Curls so thick, like the tentacles of an octopus; they seem to defy gravity, as if she lives in an underwater world. In the light of the fire, I noticed that Nisha's face was pale, like one of those figs blanched in syrup that have lost their true color. She caught my eye and smiled, a small, sweet smile. I shifted my gaze over to Aliki. "Do you have your bag ready for school?" I asked. Aliki's attention was on the screen. "We are doing it now, madam." Nisha got up hastily, gathering the bowls from the coffee table. My daughter never really spoke to me anymore. She never called me Mum, never addressed me. At some point a seed of silence had been sowed between us and it had grown up and around and between us until it became almost impossible to say anything. Most of the time, she would talk to me through Nisha. Our few conversations were functional. I watched Nisha as she licked a handkerchief and wiped a stain off Aliki's jeans and then took the bowls and spoons to the kitchen. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the trip up to Troodos, but I was feeling more tired than usual, a heaviness in my mind and my limbs. I announced that I was going to bed early. I fell asleep straightaway and didn't even hear Nisha putting Aliki to bed. Excerpted from Songbirds: A Novel by Christy Lefteri All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.