The Emerald Garden
by Raja Malah
On every day off, the child – the central character – visits his grandmother who lives in her old house amidst a flower garden at the foot of a mountain. The book describes one of those visits so we can better understand the grandmother's personality, who is full of love and tenderness. We experience this visit through the child's narration of the details as he relates all the beautiful moments rooted in his heart and memory with great love and appreciation for his grandmother. Days, months and years pass by – the wheel of life turns and the grandson becomes a father, then a grandfather. One day he decides to visit his grandmother's house with his grandchildren. The house had been transformed into a public park as per his grandmother’s wishes, as a gift to the people of the neighbourhood and their children, to enjoy the tranquillity and beauty of that garden she loved and cared for her whole life. During that nostalgic visit, reality mixes with imagination and the present with the man’s past and he finds himself facing strange manifestations: the garden sparkles with precious stones and the fig tree near his heart bears emeralds, which surprises him, as if he is prey to the hallucination of imagination, only to discover the name chosen by the mayor for his grandmother's garden – a name that reinforces his vision of "Emerald Garden". Age Range: 10+ years
