Against the Loveless World

Written By Linda Malek
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Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Reviewed by Linda
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Many thanks to @bloomsburypublishing for this stunning masterpiece!
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As perfectly as ever, Abulhawa gives a voice to the voiceless. ⁣
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My love for this author and her work is untold. Perhaps you’ve already read Mornings in Jenin and/or Between the Blue Sky and Water, perhaps not. You should but it really doesn’t matter - Against the Loveless World is 𝘵𝘩𝘦 book that’ll transform your reading experience (for the better) and completely overturn and revolutionise your perspectives of Israeli-Palestinian conflict through masterful literature. ⁣
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Abulhawa specialises in shining the spotlight on incredible Palestinian matriarchs and Nahr, our fearless protagonist, is no exception. A descendant of Palestinian refugees, confined to an Israeli jail cell, having traversed across Jordan and Kuwait - you won’t find any stereotypes of submissive Middle Eastern women in this book (just saying). ⁣
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So how does Nahr’s life lead her to the confines of a maximum-security prison in Israel? Nahr is only one of her four names, representing the multiple facets of her life, and Abulhawa doesn’t delay in drawing us closer to the captivating narrative. ⁣
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In Kuwait, her youthful innocence is peppered with bitter un-belonging as she is viewed as a 2nd class citizen, her zeal for her home nation unrequited. With the backdrop of the Iraq war, she travels from Kuwait to Jordan to seek a life of political and romantic stability and refuge. Through Nahr we learn the difference between an immigrant and refugee, our eyes are opened to an entirely new world and a history through the lens of the affected and the hopeful. ⁣
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Ultimately, it’s the way Abulhawa forces the reader through fiction to face one of the most dominant political conflicts of our lifetimes. Intimate and affecting, this is a character piece but simultaneously representative of an unheard nation. But in addition to survival, struggle, and resistance, Against the Loveless World is a story of love, a love so limitless and immeasurable that will blow you away.

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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