Book Review — My friend, author Susan Abulhawa, just published a new novel titled, “Against the Loveless World. She is the author of the international bestseller, “Mornings in Jenin,” as well as “The Blue Between Sky and Water,” and a collection of poems titled, “My Voice Sought the Wind.” Personally, I found her new novel to be daring, honest, and unaccommodating. Her writing has many qualities, one of them is that reading her novel feels a lot like listening to her talk.
Unaccommodating
One of the most painful aspects of any foreign occupation, including that of Palestine of course, is that of occupied people accommodating their occupiers. It is done because of the false belief that accommodating the beast will calm it down. It is done because people living under occupation rely on their oppressors, their occupiers for everything and oppressive regimes take advantage of the weaknesses of their subjects and use these weaknesses to get information or whatever else they may need to maintain their oppression. This has been going on since time immemorial.
Because Palestinians need a permit from the State of Israel for almost everything, there is a serious problem of informers. Be it due to greed or necessity – having never lived under an oppressive occupation myself I will be the last to judge – many Palestinian cooperate, collaborate, and sometimes just accommodate the Israeli authorities.
There naturally exists a conflict between those who fall into the vicious cycle of accommodating the regime and those who demand resistance. We know that throughout history this has led nations to bloodshed and fratricide. This is why it is particularly telling that very early on in the story, Nahr, the lead character in the novel, says, “I don’t care to be accommodating.”
As the pages of the novel turn and the story of Nahr’s life unfolds, we go through the ups and downs of this Palestinian woman’s unpredictable life. Then slowly, as we find ourselves gripped by the power of her story, we come to realize that Nahr’s unwillingness to be accommodating runs like a thread throughout the entire book. It is admirable but it comes at a heavy price.
A cube and a language
Nahr is an inmate held in solitary confinement at an Israeli prison and she tells us her story from her tiny cell, which she calls, “The Cube.” This is no ordinary cell, the Israeli authorities placed Nahr in a highly sophisticated cell where everything is automated: the light and the shower turn on and off on their own; the toilet flushes at set times and Nahr needs to accommodate herself to their schedule. She is unable to tell if it is day or night or what time of day it is.
Nahr is not permitted to have visitors of her choice but from time to time an international observer, a journalist, or a prison guard come into the cell. During these random visits, Nahr expresses her unwillingness to be accommodating.
From her solitary cell in an Israeli prison, Nahr recalls Ghassan Kanafani and James Baldwin, two great writers, who, like her, were unwilling to be accommodating. They suffered greatly because of who they were, one a Palestinian, the other a Black American. They both wrote and spoke with unmatched courage and clarity, and although dead for decades, (Kanafani was murdered by Israel in 1972, Baldwin died of cancer in 1987), they remain icons of the struggle against racism, oppression, and colonialism.
Abulhawa’s book is in English of course, but Nahr uses the Arabic language to release us and her from her tiny cell. The novel takes place in the Arab world, a world that exists outside of Nahr’s cell. The cell, the prison, and the entire State of Israel are artificial creations that were forced upon Palestine. None of them are organic and each of them – to varying degrees – is used to imprison Palestinians.
Nahr speaks to us from within the cell using as much Palestinian Arabic as possible. Her Arabic takes us out of the cold artificial cell, out of the prison and even out of Israel – as much as one can while remaining in Palestine – and places us in the heart of the world in which the story takes place.
Nahr uses Arabic for names of people and places, for names of Arabic dishes, for nicknames and for wherever else she sees fit. The first and maybe most striking example of how Nahr uses Arabic is the way she writes the name, Muhammad. It is without a doubt the most common male name in the world, and in Arabic, it is pronounced Mhammad, which is exactly the way Nahr writes it for us.
Tatreez
Nahr’s story brings to mind two metaphors. The first is a piece of Tatreez, or Palestinian embroidery. The characters in the story are the colors and designs that represent the various towns, villages, and regions of Palestine. It is embroidered over a black cloth, which is Palestine. The novel displays both the immense beauty and unspeakable tragedy of Palestine.
The second metaphor is a cluster of vines that twist and grow around the trunk of a large tree. In Palestine, one sees this often. It is particularly beautiful when the fines are in bloom, wrapping around large trunks of tall trees. The stories of Nahr and the people around her are the vines wrapping around a y tree with a thick trunk. That tree is Palestine.
Nahr is surrounded by strong characters who represent the breadth of the Palestinian experience. Their stories are told through Nahr’s story and together they evoke powerful emotions, which we experience together with her. They include innocence, passion, love, and hate, sadness, and anger as well as delicately threaded tenderness, yearning, and compassion. Abulhawa seamlessly weaves Nahr’s personal story and the stories of the other characters into the greater story of Palestine.
The story takes us into two of the largest Palestinian refugee communities in the world, Kuwait and Jordan. We come face to face with Palestinians who became refugees in 1948, and then again in 1967, and then brutally kicked out of Kuwait and turned into refugees again as a result of the first Gulf War. Each time they think they can finally rest, something happens and they are forced to move again. Yet throughout this painful and seemingly endless odyssey their anchor continues to be Palestine. Nahr tries to talk to these people, to hear about their experience, but she is met with silence. Silence of a generation of Palestinians who cannot bear to talk about their loss.
A story of love
Nahr’s experiences are perhaps not unlike other women living under oppressive regimes. But in one aspect her experience is truly universal – she experiences the full scope of cruelty meted out to women by men, by the patriarchy. Men’s brutality towards women is not unique to a particular race, nationality, or culture, making her experience universal. But still, although she suffers greatly at the hands of men, Nahr is capable of feeling and expressing a deep, sincere love for a man.
Though she speaks to us from a cold, lonely cell in which she is held by Israel, Nahr is able to relay feelings towards the one man who she truly loves and who loves her completely. She describes it as “a sexual yearning made insatiable by love so vast, as if a sky.”
In one scene Nahr watches this man whom she loves so deeply, and what she sees is, “the guilt, the impotence of seeing those settlements, the anguish over his brother, his mother, the years in prison, the torture, the inability to move.” Then, reflecting on her own sense of helplessness she says, “I wanted to take him in my arms and fix everything,” but, “all I could do was help carry the tea glasses.”
Palestine, for those who were torn away from her and for those who care for her, is like a loved one dying of terminal cancer. Hard as we may try, all we can do for her as she is being eaten away by the cancer of Zionist brutality, is make her comfortable.
Nahr’s pain is deep and real and reading this novel one often forgets that it is, in fact, fiction. She experiences pain as a woman, as a Palestinian, and as a human being. In Nahr’s own words, it is “a cloistered, unreachable, immutable ache.”
The spirit of resistance
Nahr describes what she sees in Palestine, and which few if any dare to admit: “the epic fabrication of a Jewish nation returning to its homeland.” She says that the deceit, “had grown into a living, breathing narrative that shaped lives as if it were truth.” The epic fabrication, the deceit is one and the same: the Zionist myth upon which the State of Israel was created. Israel is an enormous prison that separates Palestinians from each other and from their land. To enforce its oppressive existence on Palestine the State of Israel created a brutal war machine.
Nahr describes the Jewish-only settlements that she sees spreading like cancer all over Palestine. Entire cities, neighborhoods, and homes, including ones that belonged to people who she knows and loves and who were forced to flee their homeland, taken over by Jewish settlers.
But the spirit of resistance is alive in Palestine and Nahr will not stand idly by as others prepare to act. She is enraged by the ruthlessness of settlers and soldiers, tucked away safely in their exclusive, Arab-free colonies. She sees how they live on land stolen from Palestinians, how they come out periodically to attack Palestinians, how they act with impunity, and she, like many others, wants to see justice.
As soon as Nahr senses that people around her are engaged in acts of resistance she wants in on the action. But she is an outsider, she grew up in exile in Kuwait and it isn’t clear if she can be trusted. It is not clear whether or not she is an informant herself, in which case letting her in will be disastrous. Here, once again, Nahr is unaccommodating, fierce, and willing to face the consequences of her actions.
Feeling the pulse
Along with Ghassan Kanafani and Ibrahim Nasrallah, Susan Abulhawa’s writing has the rare quality of allowing us to hear the sound, taste the flavor, smell the fragrance, and feel the pulse of Palestine. She offers a rare insight and we would be foolish not to accept it.
Editor’s Note | An earlier version of this article was amended to add more information.
Feature photo | A Palestinian woman enjoys the Mediterranean during the Eid al-Adha holiday, Aug. 2, 2020. Oded Balilty | AP
Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”
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