A quick read set in the North African village of Nawa and Japan. The story covers a lot during a short timeframe; ecology, beekeeping, family, tradition, religious fundamentalism and politics.
4 stars. ( )

Set in a fictional North African country just after the Arab Spring, The Ardent Swarm follows small town hermetic beekeeper Sidi in his quest to save his "girls" after a violent attack on his beehives leaves one entire colony decimated.

Following both Sidi and his bees and the fate of the country as it moves into fundamentalism after "democratic" elections, the novel illustrates how chaos affects communities.

While the secondary storyline of the rise of the Party of God to power (through nefarious means) is interesting and frightening, the real heart and life of this story lies with Sidi and his journey to protect and save his precious children.

I learned more about bees than I ever thought I'd want to know and I found myself absolutely mesmerised by their machinations and the complexity of the workings in a hive. Sidi's love and care for them was poignant and his odyssey, which finds him moving far outside his comfort zone, kept me engrossed.

If you would have told me before I read this that I'd get teary eyed about a bunch of bees, I'd have laughed but I did and I admit it with no shame. The Ardent Swarm is a highly readable and beautiful little parable and I can happily recommend it. ( )

This novel is set in Tunisia and tells the tale of Islamic fundamentalism two ways: through beekeeping and attacks from foreign hornets on the hives and from fundamentalist (foreign to the original religion) attacks on the population. The beekeeping analogy was interesting, the religious fundamentalists, not so much. I almost put the book down while reading the prologue, which can be skipped! 206 pages ( )

When a strange predator endangers the future of his hives, North African beekeeper Sidi sets out to identify the threat and find a way to neutralize it. Sidi lives in Nawa, an isolated village that has suddenly received a lot of attention leading up to its first election in decades. The Party of God, a fundamentalist Muslim political party, is distributing food, clothing, and other forms of aid to buy the votes of the villagers. Is there a connection between politics and the threat to Sidi’s bees?

I was fascinated by the bee culture that drives this novel. The preservation of Sidi’s bees seems to be an allegory for the preservation of culture amidst political unrest. I’m really glad I picked up this little gem on World Book Day last year. ( )

Sidi lives alone far from Nowa, a remote Tunisian village. He is a beekeeper – and his hives are not only his vocation, but his love. He calls his bees ‘the girls’

One awful day he arrives to find one of his hives decimated. The bees lie in heaps before it, their bodies cut in half. He mounts a watch and discovers a monstrous new predator – a huge black wasp. A scout wasp comes to mark the hive; once so marked the hive is attacked and destroyed by other members of the wasp colony.

Sidi journeys to the village, where he finds the villagers wearing new black clothes and masks. He is told that the old political regime of “The Handsome One” has fallen and the country can now elect the next party in charge. The new black clothes and other supplies are gifts from “The Party of God” which the people are happy to vote for.

But in going through the boxes of presents, Sidi finds an abandoned nest of the monstrous wasps. Apparently, the gifts had an unwanted stow away now unleashed in his country.

With the help of a friend at the University he is able to identify the wasp invaders as Chinese wasps. And he discovers an almost impossible way to get rid of them, even when the government does its best to destroy his plan – which may be the only salvation for the pollinators -and thus life – in the area.

I found this interesting both as a political/religious fable and as a story standing on its own. ( )