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.