Description: "In the middle of dinner one evening, Intisar Jaber receives a phone call that will upend her quiet life in Chicago: her father is dying and she must go to Palestine to pay her final respects. But Intisar hasn't seen or heard from Hafez for nearly two decades, ever since he abandoned her and her mother to join the resistance. After a fateful mission, Hafez was thrown into the notorious Gahana Prison to serve a life sentence--permanently removed from her life. As soon as Intisar arrives in his village of Bayt al-Hawa, she discovers what it means to be a stranger in her ancestral land, the inheritance of loss, and the high price of freedom. Meanwhile, Hafez's mother Sundus battles to save the home that she built with her husband from thieving hands. Will Intisar, her estranged granddaughter, help Sundus fight to reclaim it? Can they close the gaping distance between them before it's too late?"--
Brief description: Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her debut novel The Beauty of Your Face was named a 2020 Notable Book and Editor's Choice by New York Times Book Review and one of Marie Claire Magazine's 2020 Best Fiction by Women. It was long-listed for the Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards. Her short story "Star of Bethlehem" was awarded the Lawrence Prize for Best Fiction in 2022, and "Tree of Life" won the 2023 Robert J. DeMott Prize. Her recent fiction is featured in Stories from the Center of the World: New Middle East Fiction and 'The View from Gaza' published in The Massachusetts Review. She was awarded a 2023 Jack Hazard Fellowship from New Literary Project and an Illinois Arts Council Grant. Mustafah writes and teaches outside of Chicago.
Review Quotes: "...this is an expansive novel that offers readers access to a world too often reduced to explosive news stories or data-driven human rights reports. Mustafah is a witness, and this book is powerful testimony."--Keija Parssinen