Palestine

A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that does for Palestine what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan. Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejos are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp. We follow the Abulhejo family as they live through a half century of violent history. Amidst the loss and fear, hatred and pain, as their tents are replaced by more forebodingly permanent cinderblock huts, there is always the waiting, waiting to return to a lost home. The novel's voice is that of Amal, the granddaughter of the old village patriarch, a bright, sensitive girl who makes it out of the camps, only to return years later, to marry and bear a child. Through her eyes, with her evolving vision, we get the story of her brothers, one who is kidnapped to be raised Jewish, one who will end with bombs strapped to his middle. But of the many interwoven stories, stretching backward and forward in time, none is more important than Amal's own. Her story is one of love and loss, of childhood and marriage and parenthood, and finally the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has. Set against one of the twentieth century's most intractable political conflicts, Mornings in Jenin is a deeply human novel - a novel of history, identity, friendship, love, terrorism, surrender, courage, and hope. Its power forces us to take a fresh look at one of the defining conflicts of our lifetimes.

WINNER OF THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction * A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of the Year "Assured and formidable." -- Wall Street Journal After years away from her family's homeland, and reeling from a disastrous love affair, actress Sonia Nasir returns to Haifa to visit her older sister Haneen. This is her first trip back since the second intifada and the deaths of their grandparents: while Haneen made a life here commuting to Tel Aviv to teach at the university, Sonia remained in London to focus on her acting career and now dissolute marriage. On her return, she finds her relationship to Palestine is fragile, both bone-deep and new. At Haneen's, Sonia meets the charismatic and candid Mariam, a local director, and finds herself roped into a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. Sonia is soon rehearsing Gertude's lines in Classical Arabic and spending more time in Ramallah than Haifa, along with a dedicated group of men from all over historic Palestine who, in spite of competing egos and priorities, each want to bring Shakespeare to that side of the wall. As opening night draws closer it becomes clear just how many violent obstacles stand before a troupe of Palestinian actors. Amidst it all, the life Sonia once knew starts to give way to the daunting, exhilarating possibility of finding a new self in her ancestral home. A stunning rendering of present-day Palestine, Enter Ghost is a story of diaspora, displacement, and the connection to be found in family and shared resistance. Timely, thoughtful, and passionate, Isabella Hammad's highly anticipated second novel is an exquisite feat, an unforgettable story of artistry under occupation.

Published in 2022, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear won the 2022 Palestine Book Award, the 2023 American Book Award, Arrowsmith Press’s 2023 Derek Walcott Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

"In this poetry debut, the first collection from any Gazan poet to be published in English, Mosab Abu Toha writes directly from the experience of growing up and living one's entire life in Gaza, the world's largest open-air prison camp. These poems emerge from Mosab's life under siege, first as a child, and then as a young father. A survivor of four brutal military attacks, he bears witness to a grinding cycle of destruction and assault, and yet, his poetry is infused with a profoundly universal humanity. In direct, vivid language, Abu Toha writes about being unwelcome in your own land, and even outside of it. He writes about being wounded by shrapnel at the age of 16, and then, a few years later, watching his home and his university get hit by Israeli warplanes in an attack that killed two of his close friends. Books are buried in rubble and electricity is often limited to 2 hours a day, and yet, families continue traditions, students attend university, and libraries rise from the ruins. These poems are filled with bombs and the ever-present menace of surveillance drones, as well as the smell of tea and roses in bloom, and the view of the sea at sunset. They present an almost surrealist/absurd viewpoint, based in a sense of rational and profound perplexity as to why these conditions continue, and how the people of Gaza go about their lives, even creating beauty as they find new ways to survive. Abu Toha writes, "It's not only about narrating things. It's about keeping things alive in us and for the generations to come. It's about how life crumbles, but also how it tries to stand." If we don't begin understanding what has happened there--and is still happening--Gaza might be our future as well. We all need to grasp what it means to still be human in such a situation"-- Provided by publisher