Rosa believes herself to be a superior being and makes that clear to everyone around her. Rosa takes over full control of the child and goes to great lengths to keep her away from Sulfia’s bad influence. Rosa believes that her grand-daughter Aminat has escaped her daughter’s bad genes and is on a mission to turn her into the beautiful, intelligent, well-mannered daughter she never had. She is frustrated by the lazy ineptitude of her daughter and does her best to insure that her grand-daughter does not end up the same way. Rosa, the narrator and protagonist of the novel, controls, manipulates and judges everyone around her to get what she wants. Several months later, Sulfia gives birth to a baby girl named Aminat.Īlina Bronsky’s novel, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, is the story of a lifetime of manipulations by a mostly, but not always, well-wishing mother. Scalding mustard seed baths, concoctions made of cranberry and stewed laurel leaves and a knitting needle inserted into the abdomen make Sulfia violently ill but fail to take care of her problem. After overcoming this disgust for her own child, Rosa feels sorry for the girl and takes action. And yet somehow she was my daughter-worse still, my only daughter.”Īs her seventeen-year-old daughter sobs on a kitchen stool after confessing she is pregnant with an unknown man’s child, all Rosa can think about is how stupid, pathetic and unfortunate looking her only offspring is at that moment. In fact, to be honest, I’d say she was rather stupid.
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