Our Grandmother's Drums

In 1985 Hudson visited the village of Dulaba in the Gambia to help in some field studies there. He was so intrigued by what he saw that he decided to return. The book tells of the lives of the women, devout Muslims, who are circumcised in an all-female ritual, but who sing ribald songs.

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West Africa. Blinding white light, dust and scrub, salt flats and mangrove swamps, a village called Dulaba in the Gambia. People are scratching a living out of rice, groundnuts, millet. At the appointed time, the women beat their grandmothers' drums and go to the bush for the circumcision rituals. No man is allowed. . . . . . . To Mark Hudson, a casual visitor, Dulaba in 1985 was a fascination; its stark landscape vivid with the presence of its women. What were their lives, bounded by Islam, by female circumcision, by the necessity to work in the fields and to obey first their mothers and then their husbands? Out of his year in Dulaba has come a wonderful book. Reading it is like watching a picture being painted. . . . . A moving, evan a majestic book' Listener