Winner of the 2016 American Book Award, the 2016 Arab American
Book Award, and the 2014 Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction
Susan Muaddi
Darraj's short story collection about the inhabitants of a
Palestinian West Bank village, Tel al-Hilou, spans generations and
continents to explore ideas of memory, belonging, connection, and,
ultimately, the deepest and richest meaning of home. A Curious
Land gives voice to the experiences of Palestinians in the last
century.
An excerpt from A
Curious Land:
When Rabab lowered
the magad and clapped-clapped to the well in her mother's too-big
slippers, the stone jar digging into her shoulder, she didn't, at
first, see the body. The morning sun glazed everything around her—the
cement homes, the iron rails along one wall, the bars on the windows,
the stones around the well—and made her squint her itchy eyes.
She was hungry. That
was all.
They'd arrived here
only last night, stopping as soon as Awwad and the men were sure the
army had moved south. It must have been the third time in just a few
weeks—collapse the tents, load the mules, disappear into the sands.
She hoped this war would end soon, and she didn't really care who
won, as long as it ended because they hadn't eaten well in two years.
In the past few months, her mother had sold all her gold, except for
her bracelet made of liras. It was the only thing left, and she was
holding onto it, and Rabab realized, so were they all; she imagined
that, the day it was sold, when her mother's wrist was bare, would
signal that they were at the end.