Remember the Bees by Zineb Mekouar, translated into English by Maren Baudet-Lackner, is a beautiful and heartbreaking novel about the ties between family, land, and tradition, and the grief of watching a place that has sustained generations become increasingly difficult to call home.
High in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, the village of Inzerki is home to an ancient communal apiary where bees have lived alongside people for centuries. For young Anir, becoming a beekeeper like his grandfather represents the continuation of a family inheritance, one that binds him to the land and the generations who came before him. Yet the world he hopes to inherit is changing. Rising temperatures are drying up springs and driving away the flowers that sustain the bees. As the natural environment deteriorates, the village’s future becomes increasingly uncertain, and the fractures within Anir’s own family begin to surface. Mekouar weaves these threads together into a moving story about what happens when the past that gives us our identity can no longer guarantee our future.
Continue reading “Remember the Bees by Zineb Mekouar: A family’s heartbreak in a vanishing homeland”