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A review by kimbofo
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
4.0
Susan Abulhawa’s Against the Loveless World is a gripping account of a Palestinian woman, trapped in a small nine-metre square prison cell known as the "Cube".
A fast-paced narrative full of drama and intrigue, it’s deeply political, defiant and edgy.
The tale is narrated in the first person by Nahr, who writes in a fierce, rebellious and tenacious voice (to match her personality). We don’t know the details of her conviction, nor how long she has been in solitary confinement. But we know that she has previously been labelled a whore and a terrorist.
Her present experience in the “Cube” is told in short, powerful chapters that are interleaved with the longer chronological story of her life, which began in a "Kuwait ghetto where Palestinian refugees settled after the Nakba".
When her father dies, she and her younger brother, Jehad, are raised by their mother, whose well-off family was made penniless overnight when “European Jews […] conquered Palestine in 1948”, and paternal grandmother, who lives with them.
At school, Nahr beats up classmates, gets suspended, pulls pranks on teachers and starts a gang. When she eventually drops out, she is determined that Jehad won’t suffer the same fate. She works multiple menial jobs to save the money to send him to medical school.
It’s when she catches the eye of Um Buraq, an older unmarried Kuwaiti woman, that Nahr’s life develops a new twist. Invited to attend a party and to dance with strange men, she is unaware that she’s being recruited to work as a high-end prostitute. She is initially appalled by the concept but changes her mind when she realises the potential to make enough money to pay her brother’s school fees and the family’s living costs.
This lifestyle is a grim and gritty one, lived in secret to protect her family, and results in brutal sexual assaults and, on one occasion, an unwanted pregnancy that ends in miscarriage.
There are two more central relationships in Nahr’s life, that of Mhammad Jalal AbuJabal, a famous freedom fighter she eventually marries to save face (and which, paradoxically, also saves him, a closet homosexual, from being “outed”), and Mhammad’s brother, Bilal, whom she later meets in Palestine and falls in love with.
It’s that visit to Palestine, initially arranged so she can enlist Bilal’s help to secure a divorce from the man who has abandoned her, that Nahr has a political awakening. Initially on the outer with Bilal’s friends, a close-knit group of revolutionaries, she sees the importance of what they are doing.
This story highlights, in no uncertain terms, the brutal legacy of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine.
Through the lens of one woman’s bitter experience, it shows us the powerful influences of colonisation, patriarchy, resistance and repatriation, and asks us an important question: how would we react if we found ourselves in a similar situation?
It’s not a perfect novel and wears its political agenda clearly on its sleeve, but this is a thought-provoking narrative about the fight for dignity and liberation.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
A fast-paced narrative full of drama and intrigue, it’s deeply political, defiant and edgy.
The tale is narrated in the first person by Nahr, who writes in a fierce, rebellious and tenacious voice (to match her personality). We don’t know the details of her conviction, nor how long she has been in solitary confinement. But we know that she has previously been labelled a whore and a terrorist.
Her present experience in the “Cube” is told in short, powerful chapters that are interleaved with the longer chronological story of her life, which began in a "Kuwait ghetto where Palestinian refugees settled after the Nakba".
When her father dies, she and her younger brother, Jehad, are raised by their mother, whose well-off family was made penniless overnight when “European Jews […] conquered Palestine in 1948”, and paternal grandmother, who lives with them.
At school, Nahr beats up classmates, gets suspended, pulls pranks on teachers and starts a gang. When she eventually drops out, she is determined that Jehad won’t suffer the same fate. She works multiple menial jobs to save the money to send him to medical school.
It’s when she catches the eye of Um Buraq, an older unmarried Kuwaiti woman, that Nahr’s life develops a new twist. Invited to attend a party and to dance with strange men, she is unaware that she’s being recruited to work as a high-end prostitute. She is initially appalled by the concept but changes her mind when she realises the potential to make enough money to pay her brother’s school fees and the family’s living costs.
This lifestyle is a grim and gritty one, lived in secret to protect her family, and results in brutal sexual assaults and, on one occasion, an unwanted pregnancy that ends in miscarriage.
There are two more central relationships in Nahr’s life, that of Mhammad Jalal AbuJabal, a famous freedom fighter she eventually marries to save face (and which, paradoxically, also saves him, a closet homosexual, from being “outed”), and Mhammad’s brother, Bilal, whom she later meets in Palestine and falls in love with.
It’s that visit to Palestine, initially arranged so she can enlist Bilal’s help to secure a divorce from the man who has abandoned her, that Nahr has a political awakening. Initially on the outer with Bilal’s friends, a close-knit group of revolutionaries, she sees the importance of what they are doing.
This story highlights, in no uncertain terms, the brutal legacy of Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestine.
Through the lens of one woman’s bitter experience, it shows us the powerful influences of colonisation, patriarchy, resistance and repatriation, and asks us an important question: how would we react if we found ourselves in a similar situation?
It’s not a perfect novel and wears its political agenda clearly on its sleeve, but this is a thought-provoking narrative about the fight for dignity and liberation.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.