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A review by tsudonkuwali
Habibi by Naomi Shihab Nye
5.0
**spoilers**
Naomi Shihab Nye's Habibi is a poetic, multicultural masterpiece. Having been acquainted with Shihab Nye through previous works and an interview she gave with NPR's On Being, I felt the semi-autobiographical nature of the book. I loved Liyana's meeting of her Arab family members and her father's land. Shihab Nye doesn't seem to have much compulsion to explicate her story in boring detail, giving only enough to keep the reader understanding and then leaving other parts of the story to be inferred from poetic morsels.
The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict is ever woven through the strands of the novel. At first, I felt that Liyana's friendship/crush on Omer was cliche such as the common trope of defiant American girl pursuing her own romance with someone she fell in love with at first sight. But Omer is so much more symbolically important to the story, and as someone who loves both Israelis and Palestinian, Indians and Pakistanis, European-Americans and African-Americans, I want desperately to believe that peace and reconciliation can be possible. Omer's friendship, his introduction to Sitti, the generally positive reception of Omer as representative of Israelis is so "And they lived happily ever after..."
Shihab Nye doesn't shy away from the injustices against Palestinians or the prejudice from both sides. (Palestinian resistance is fairly non-existant in the book too, so that perspective has been overlooked here.) One either forgets to truth-tell about injustice or forget that friendships can be a bridge to reconcile. Is it worth our vengeance to block ourselves from the blessing of a whole group of people who share the same earth as us? Though it is painful, though restoration and justice needs to come forth, what is it not all for but the healing of our broken humanity?
P.S. As a native Missourian, I love all the references to St. Louis and Missouri.
Naomi Shihab Nye's Habibi is a poetic, multicultural masterpiece. Having been acquainted with Shihab Nye through previous works and an interview she gave with NPR's On Being, I felt the semi-autobiographical nature of the book. I loved Liyana's meeting of her Arab family members and her father's land. Shihab Nye doesn't seem to have much compulsion to explicate her story in boring detail, giving only enough to keep the reader understanding and then leaving other parts of the story to be inferred from poetic morsels.
The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict is ever woven through the strands of the novel. At first, I felt that Liyana's friendship/crush on Omer was cliche such as the common trope of defiant American girl pursuing her own romance with someone she fell in love with at first sight. But Omer is so much more symbolically important to the story, and as someone who loves both Israelis and Palestinian, Indians and Pakistanis, European-Americans and African-Americans, I want desperately to believe that peace and reconciliation can be possible. Omer's friendship, his introduction to Sitti, the generally positive reception of Omer as representative of Israelis is so "And they lived happily ever after..."
Shihab Nye doesn't shy away from the injustices against Palestinians or the prejudice from both sides. (Palestinian resistance is fairly non-existant in the book too, so that perspective has been overlooked here.) One either forgets to truth-tell about injustice or forget that friendships can be a bridge to reconcile. Is it worth our vengeance to block ourselves from the blessing of a whole group of people who share the same earth as us? Though it is painful, though restoration and justice needs to come forth, what is it not all for but the healing of our broken humanity?
P.S. As a native Missourian, I love all the references to St. Louis and Missouri.