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About Esther Freud

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Synopsis

Two little girls are taken by their mother to Morocco on a ’60s pilgrimage of self-discovery. For Mum it is not just an escape from the grinding conventions of English life but a quest for personal fulfillment; her children, however, seek something more solid and stable amidst the shifting desert sands.

Reviews

Customer Review: 11 September 2002

Reviewer: A reader from London, UK

A delightful and beguiling book, written with studied, childish naivety, it tells of the experiences of two young English girls living with their mother in 1960s Marrakech. As the book's five-year-old narrator candidly describes the world in which she finds herself immersed, it becomes clear that nothing is as simple, or as innocent, as she herself understands it to be. The book depicts with sensitivity, affection and amusement the relationships between the two girls, their mother and the various people they meet, each shaped into characters of hilarity, excitement and wonder through the inventiveness of a child's imagination. Often, childhood fantasy and unadorned reality mingle unhindered, leaving the reader to question whether the 'objective' truth is any more real or important than personal perceptions. Skilfully constructed and beautifully written, avoiding the dangerous pit of sentimentality in which so many stories of childhood find themselves wallowing, this is a story that lodges itself in the heart while entertaining the mind.

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Critic Review:

'Written with the art that conceals art ... Hideous Kinky has a delightful lightness of being ... the landscape sparkles with allure and minor characters stand out vividly against it. Beggars, shepherds, innkeepers, idiots, dubious Moroccan and eccentric European ladies are funny and appealing and seen with affection' The Times Literary Supplement

'Sheer delight ... a strange, wonderful book, full of evocative description, bright humour and melting melancholy' Women's Journal

'Just open the book and begin, and instantly you will be first of all charmed, then intrigued and finally moved by this fascinating story' The Spectator

'With a quite remarkable skill, Esther Freud presents life on the road in Morroco with a well-meaning hippie mother from the point of view of her five-year old daughter. To write in this context with absolute conviction and without falling into the trap of becoming sentimental, is fiendishly difficult, not least because it has to sound effortless. Freud does it beautifully' Sunday Times

'The best writer about childhood we have' Independent on Sunday

'A remarkable triumph... Not just beautifully written, but forces the reader to look at the world of childhood in a new and exciting light' Sunday Telegraph

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