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Between Two Shores: Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk and the Struggle for Belonging
A powerful novel that lays bare the complexities of identity, migration, and rejection through the journey of a boy caught between Kuwait and the Philippines.
Picture this: a boy born of sin, silence, and side glances—half Kuwaiti, half Filipina, wholly unwanted. That is our protagonist, José Mendoza, who becomes Isa Al Tarouf, and then back again. This isn’t a novel; it’s a state of limbo—a bamboo stalk that grows wherever it’s planted, but never truly belongs.
Saud Alsanousi’s The Bamboo Stalk is a novel you inhale in one sitting and spend the week haunted by. I read it in less than 24 hours; it’s not reading so much as being mugged in slow motion by societal hypocrisy.
There is unmistakable craftsmanship here. It’s not a story—it’s a scalpel. Sleek, sharp, and wielded by a writer who knows exactly where to cut. Alsanousi could’ve made it simple drama, but he chooses nuance and silence over screams, the unseen bruises.
The narrative voice—delivered through Isa’s autobiographical manuscript—is convincing, unadorned, and just what this story needed. There is no melodrama or flowery detours—just Isa’s voice. It is raw, questioning, achingly sincere. Alsanousi makes you live Isa’s life, not just watch it. You feel every rebuff, every glance, and every forced smile that follows being told you don’t belong—again.
And oh, how not belonging is the real villain here.
Born in Kuwait, Isa is shipped off to the Philippines. He grows up among roosters and poverty, with only faint memories of a father who sends money, not love. When his father dies, Isa returns to Kuwait—a land that birthed him and then denies him. The same country that once employed his mother to scrub its floors now balks at her son claiming kinship.
What could have been a sob story is instead a moral autopsy. Alsanousi tears into the contradictions of a society that prides itself on religion, tradition, and familial duty. Yet, it can’t bring itself to accept the brown-skinned child of one of its own. There’s satire and sadness, and sometimes they come hand in hand. When Isa learns the woman who “proofread” his manuscript is actually his half-sister, it hits you like a slap. The kind where the sting comes after the sound.
One of the novel’s triumphs is how it holds up a cracked mirror not just to Gulf society, but to all societies. Filipinos, too, have their tribalisms and prejudices. The novel poses a dangerous question: do we value lineage only when it flatters us? If Isa had returned to Kuwait with blond curls and European cheekbones, would the doors have opened more readily?
The answer seems clear.
It’s that unblinking honesty that makes this book necessary. The Bamboo Stalk doesn’t preach. It just points—and lets you cringe.
Yet, this is not a hopeless book. There’s beauty here, in the simplicity of Alsanousi’s language and the precision of the pacing. Tiny, glittering reveals punctuate the narrative like fireflies in the dark—like when the meaning of “MM” on Merla’s tattoo suddenly clicks into place. Or when the true story behind the mysterious Chuleng is revealed.
This is a novel where nothing is wasted. Every detail has a pulse.
At its core, the novel is about the tragedy of being between. Isa is not quite Filipino, not quite Kuwaiti, not fully Muslim, not fully Catholic. He’s not just a boy—he’s a border. The problem with borders is that someone’s always trying to cross you, claim you, or close you off.
The Tarouf family—his father’s proud, pedigree-obsessed clan—shows this tension. They reject Isa not because he is bad, but because he is inconvenient. He is the wrong answer to a question they never wanted to ask.
This is a novel that should be read with a highlighter, a box of tissues, and, ideally, a punching bag. It will frustrate you, soften you, and make you question the invisible lines you didn’t even know you drew around your identity.
I give it five stars—not because it’s perfect, but because it dares. It raises a voice from the margins and asks: What if what we fear most is the mirror it holds up to us?
Read it. Mourn it. Then plant it in the soil of your conscience. It may not grow roots, but it will bend with the wind and whisper its truths whenever you try to forget.
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