Susan Abulhawa

Apr 29

📗Author📕Appreciation📙Post 📒⁣⁣

Reviewed by Linda
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Do you guys know about Susan Abulhawa!?⁣
If you don’t know about this author you are missing out!⁣
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No two ways about it. ⁣
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Susan’s previous novels, Mornings in Jenin and The Blue Between Sky and Water, are my gold standard for fiction and I wholeheartedly recommend all of her work to anyone struggling to find *THAT* book⁣📚
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Her masterpieces don’t end there! Her newest piece: Against the Loveless World is out in the summer and is INCREDIBLE. This deserves a whole post in its own right so stay tuned for it... ⁣👀 ⁣Mornings in Jenin will leave you totally speechless - a tale of love and loss which tugged at my heartstrings over and over again. If you want to know about the crude reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict: read this. If you want to know why terrorism exists: read here. When I heard that this book was akin to @khosseini's masterpieces, I was skeptical, but the reality is that I couldn't give this book enough praise if I tried. ⁣
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What's interesting about books that describe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is that they completely overturn what we see covered by the news which usually shows an affinity for one side or another for political, religious, or philosophical reasons. ⁣
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What we forget is that there are victims which live a lifetime of suffering on the other side of the fence. In this book, Susan takes the reader into Gaza through a multi-generational Palestinian family and it is through the matriarchs in the family that we learn what it means to endure, to love, and to live. ⁣
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Whilst this kind of fiction isn't everyone's cup of tea - I absolutely love being transported to a world far from my own. There are definitely not enough stars to rate this book, I most thoroughly recommend it! ⁣
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Although Susan’s writing is so deep and emotionally affecting you can’t ignore the dark humour that runs in parallel. It is beguiling and I’ve never read anything like it. ⁣
But ultimately it’s the way Abulhawa, like no other, forces the reader through fiction to face one of the most dominant political conflicts of our lifetimes that makes her a scholar in my eyes. ⁣

Thank me later 📚

The Blue Between Sky and WaterSusan Abulhawacontemporary fictionpalestineLindaMornings in Jeninagainst the loveless worldpalestinian authormiddle eastbloomsbury publishing

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.

Susan Abulhawa

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