Si j’avais voulu lire un traité de pédagogie sur l’analphabétisme, je l’aurais fait. Mais là, je voulais lire un livre, un roman, un roman dont la quatrième de couverture faisait miroiter qu’il était plein de sensibilité et d’humanité. Mais je n’ai rien trouvé de tout cela. Avec des phrases sèches, sujet-verbe-complément et pas beaucoup plus, j’ai vu se nouer une relation que j’ai trouvée très artificielle entre deux femmes que tout devrait séparer, et bien sûr surtout leur rapport à l’écrit.
Pourtant l’idée était intéressante, une femme analphabète (et oui, analphabète et illettré ne sont pas synonymes, et ce n’est pas qu’une coquetterie) d’une soixantaine d’années se décide à apprendre à lire quand une de ses patronnes, chez qui elle fait le ménage, le lui propose. Et en miroir, une femme cultivée et pleine de bonne volonté qui s’improvise prof, s’aperçoit des difficultés et se remet en question tout au long du chemin.
Mais cette histoire m’a semblé désincarnée, et les considérations sur les difficultés à vivre dans un monde de signes pour un analphabète ou un illettré, tout comme celles sur les difficultés de l’apprentissage m’ont parues très superficielles. Je suis assez déçue de ce livre qui ne m’a pas vraiment appris quoi que ce soit et qui n’a suscité en moi aucune empathie avec les personnages.

Fadila Amrani is someone whom it's easy to overlook, or perhaps, look through. She is one of the numerous immigrant women making their living as housekeepers, laundresses, and cooks in middle class households around the world. It is usually only when there is a problem--a misunderstanding due to "broken" language, being late due to a difference in the conception and importance of being prompt, or the inability to read instructions, a receipt, a phone number--that the employer sees the worker, usually to fire them. Like so many of these women, Fadila is illiterate, not only in her new language (Parisian French), but in her old (Berber Arabic) as well.

Fadilla's new employer, Édith, is more attuned to language and literacy than most because she is a translator. She also taught her precocious son to read. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult or time-consuming to teach Fadila? But from the beginning, things do not go as Édith expects. Despite her earnest desire to help Fadila learn to read, all her research, and her attempts to cajole Fadila into a regular habit of lessons and homework, Fadila doesn't make progress. Why?

The story of Édith and Fadila is one of unlikely friendship, the day to day realities of cultural differences, and the struggles of students trying to learn a new language and their teachers. There is no sweeping plot line, rather the slow character development that comes from the accumulation of the intimate details of life. I enjoyed Bitter Almonds, not least because I, like Édith, have experienced the breakthroughs and disappointments of teaching an older woman my language. In the end, it's the relationship, not the progress, that defines the experience. ( )

A sobering look at how challenging it is to learn--or try to teach someone--to read late in life. The situation is complicated further when the learner is an immigrant. ( )

A sobering look at how challenging it is to learn--or try to teach someone--to read late in life. The situation is complicated further when the learner is an immigrant. ( )

A sobering look at how challenging it is to learn--or try to teach someone--to read late in life. The situation is complicated further when the learner is an immigrant. ( )