Mornings in Jenin
A Novel
By Susan Abulhawa
February 2010
$15.00
352 pp
5.5 x 8.25 in
Paperback
ISBN-13: 9781608190461
ISBN-10: 1608190463
ISBN-10: 1608190463
Mornings in Jenin
A Novel
By Susan Abulhawa
A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that could do 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.
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Reviews for Mornings in Jenin :
“In these lean times for the book industry, a second chance for a work of literary fiction is beyond fantastical - akin to seeing the Mona Lisa twitch. To resort to a quaint phrase from publishing days of yore, someone at Bloomsbury obviously believed in this book, and, politics aside for a moment, it's easy to see why. Abulhawa is a passionate writer whose limber, poetic style transports a reader deep inside the war-torn world she chronicles…. Melodramatic? Certainly. Polemical? Absolutely. But, Mornings in Jenin is also a terrifically affecting novel, thanks to Abulhawa's elegance as a writer. It's a novel to savor…”—Maureen Corrigan, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"If you liked The Lemon Tree, learn more about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Susan Abulhawa's Mornings in Jenin. In her debut novel, Abulhawa (born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967) wades through 60 years of Palestine history through heroine Amal, whose Palestinian family was driven from their home in 1948 to the refugee camp Jenin. Fans of The Kite Runner will enjoy Born Under a Million Shadows, where author Andrea Busfield explores Afghanistan
"Mornings in Jenin, by Susan Abulhawa (Bloomsbury, $15 paperback). This debut novel by Philly-area Abulhawa, which flew under the radar when it was first published by a small press, tells the story of four generations of a Palestinian family removed from their village when Israel was created in 1948.—The Philadelphia Inquirer. Read full review
Mornings In Jenin by Susan Abulhawa is included in a winter/spring round-up of upcoming books in The Philadelphia Inquirer. This article about notable upcoming books has been picked up by several papers across the country, including: Charleston Gazette (West Virginia), Jackson Citizen Patriot (Michigan), Sun Journal (Maine), Tulsa World (Oklahoma), and The Virginian Pilot (Virginia)
"In the acknowledgments to her novel Mornings in Jenin, Susan Abulhawa recalls being inspired by Edward Said's lament "that the Palestinian narrative was lacking in literature." Published as Scars of David in 2006, Abulhawa's newly re-edited novel fills that gap, chronicling the development of the Jewish state and its consequences for local Arabs from a decidedly Palestinian perspective: her protagonist, Amal, grows up in the Jenin refugee camp, her family having lost its land in Ein Hod to conquering Zionists. Still, Abulhawa's cast includes Jewish characters and she acknowledges, more than many Palestinian intellectuals have done, the promise offered to Jews by Israel, which one character understands as "a tiny haven for Jews in a world that built death camps for them in other places."—TabletMag.com
"Abulhawa's debut novel is a powerful portrayal of what might be labeled the "other side" of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the viewpoint of Palestinian refugees uprooted in 1948.. An intimate look at the refugee existence by a daughter of refugees."—Booklist