The Singer and Her Song

The Singer and her Song is a story of family dynamics and hard-earned self-knowledge played out In Syria in 1235 BCE. Uqnitum, a singer from a famous musical lineage in the kingdom of Mitanni, has already driven away her older sons by her domineering perfectionism. When the fall of their city to the Assyrians costs her the life of her husband and her youngest child, she and her pregnant widowed daughter flee to the court of Ugarit, where they become part of musical preparations for the king’s marriage. To her surprise, she encounters there her two estranged sons and a former lover. Haunted by guilt over her part in her husband’s death, Uqnitum’s increasingly unhinged personality becomes more dangerous to the peace of her remaining family than any foreign army. Only by succumbing to her weakness does she learn the real nature of strength: that in order to save her family, she may have to give them up.