Description: "A sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East... As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she's forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation."--
Brief description: susan abulhawa is a Palestinian American writer and activist. She is the author of the international bestseller, Mornings in Jenin, The Blue Between Sky and Water, and Against the Loveless World, winner of the Arab American Book Award, The Palestine Book Award, and finalist for an Aspen Words Prize. Born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, abulhawa moved to the United States as a teenager, graduated in biomedical science, and established a career in medical science. In July 2001, she founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a non-governmental children's organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children.
Review Quotes: "This utterly compelling novel of love, passion, and politics is also a story of personal and revolutionary awakening. Susan Abulhawa weaves a thrilling account of Nahr and her life-from young girl to independent woman-into the larger tapestry of Palestinian dispossession and resistance. Formed through the calamitous experiences of invasion, war, occupation, and sexual exploitation, Nahr becomes a political prisoner who is yet free in her own mind. An agent of history and a full-fledged subject of her own existence, Nahr stands at the center of Abulhawa's ambitious epic."