This is a beautiful book. Told from the perspective of
Momo, an orphan Arab boy who does not know his actual date of birth,
it is filled with an innocent humour that is never far from the
reality of poverty and deprivation in which the story takes place.
Many of the words he uses are completely wrong, paralleling the actual word in
pronunciation but miles away from it in meaning, something which only
tends to add to the underlying humour. Rosa, the sixty-eight-year-old
Jewish ex-prostitute who takes care of Momo and several other
children on the sixth floor of a block of flats, is overweight, ill
and on the verge of losing her mind. She is incapable of looking
after the children but she loves them, especially Momo. This is a
book about love set against a background of immense tragedy and
despair; in the end, it is love that pushes aside everything else and
becomes the only thing that is important. Definitely recommended.