Description

Quartet Books 1st 1990

large 8vo, black boards with silver titling to the spine. Very, very minor bumps to the corners of the boards. Dustwrapper unevenly trimmed at front bottom edge, otherwise VG++/VG++

(Order reference 16545)

Gisèle Halimi was the second child of an orthodox-Jewish Tunisian family. When she was born, her father was so disappointed at not having another son that he waited two weeks before announcing his bad luck. Endowed with exceptional intelligence, a rebellious spirit and perseverance, Gisèle took her destiny into her own hands at an early age and decided to study law. She moved to Paris and achieved her ambition to become a barrister, gaining wide attention for her courageous and irrepressible campaigns against injustice. In one celebrated case she represented a group of Algerians accused of massacre. She also defended many young women in cases of abortion and rape. In Paris she entered the world of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and many eminent figures in the literary scene.

Milk for the Orange Tree is the interwoven story of her beloved father’s death and of her own life in a troubled period in France’s history – the life of a daughter, rebel, mother, feminist, advocate and politician, maintaining the delicate balance between private and public roles and spanning the troubled times from the German occupation of Tunisia through the Algerian War of Independence, up to the present day.

The title of Gisèle Halimi’s book, Milk for the Orange Tree, recalls a childhood memory when she secretly gave the milk she was supposed to drink, but hated, to a dying orange tree in the hope of reviving it. Hers is a compelling story told with compassion and commitment.