Susan Abulhawa

#ReadAroundTheWorld. #Palestine (which is not recognised as a country but should be)

This award-winning book highlights the suffering of the Palestinian people throughout the Israeli occupation and other conflicts. The author was born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugee parents.

The main character is Nahr, a woman born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents in the 1970s. After the US invasion of Iraq, she flees to Jordan then Palestine, her ancestral homeland. The story shifts between the present, with Nahr being held in solitary confinement in The Cube in Israel, as a political prisoner for acts of terrorism, and the past that has led up to this point.

Nahr’s story is one of heartache and struggle but also great bravery. She begins with a simple dream of marriage and owning her own salon, which rapidly evaporates when her husband abandons her and she is forced into a life of prostitution. In Palestine she is faced with the suffering of her people at the hands of the Israelis and the destruction of their olive groves and traditional way of life. She falls in love and becomes involved in the resistance.

There are several scenes involving sexual abuse and this book is not an easy read. It is a dark story about the traumas facing this woman, representative of the suffering of so many Palestinian women. It is about the suffering of women at the hands of men, and the suffering of the Palestinian people as a whole. It was very reminiscent of a book I just read, Woman At Point Zero, set in Egypt. Despite the heavy subject matter, this book helps give insight into many issues facing Palestinians, it creates a picture of their home, and there are moments of beauty and humour. Best of all Nahr is a badass and I loved her snarky internal dialogue.… (plus d'informations)

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa is an intense story about a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East. Growing up in Kuwait, she learns hard lessons about how women are held to be inferior, and how being Palestinian makes everything harder. I was surprised that the Arab world is not particularly sympathetic to the Palestinian plight perhaps because they want to keep the devastating Israeli-Palestinian conflicts front and center in the world view.

This story gives us a human face to follow and is an interesting blend of fact and fiction. The perspective is unapologetically Palestinian and heartbreaking in it’s content of conflict, struggle and resistance. The story of her life is told by Nahr as she is being held in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison. We learn of her younger years in Kuwait, her family’s escape to Jordan and her eventual discovery of Palestine as her homeland.

I actually wanted to like this book more than I did. I have read Mornings in Jenin by this same author and absolutely loved that book. The troubles in that area of the world are on-going and have flared up again recently. I can’t ever see a resolution being found to this situation and my heart actually goes out to both sides. I suspect that was what I didn’t like in the book, it’s total one-sidedness made me uncomfortable. Although it is good to see the Palestinian side represented in literature, I now feel as if I need to read a pro-Jewish book to acquire some balance.… (plus d'informations)