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A review by amethysthunter
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
5.0
I find myself stunned by how simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful this book is.
Abulhawa does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen at speaking to the messiness of the human condition whether it be pain, suffering, love, or loss. Although the characters are fictional, the tale of Palestinian genocide and its events are all real — told across four generations of characters who try to remain whole and care for each other and their homeland to the best of their abilities amidst immeasurable atrocities.
If I wasn’t in public while reading most of this I think I literally would have been full out sobbing at multiple points (from sadness but also multiple tender/joyful moments).
Here is one of my favorite quotes that I think illuminates a lot of what the book is able to show in striking color:
“Thus Yehya tallied forty generations of living, now stolen. Forty generations of childbirth and funerals, weddings and dance, prayer and scraped knees. Forty generations of sin and charity, of cooking, toiling, and idling, of friendships and animosities and pacts, of rain and lovemaking. Forty generations with their imprinted memories, secrets, and scandals. All carried away by the notion of entitlement of another people, who would settle in the vacancy and proclaim it all—all that was left in the way of architecture, orchards, wells, flowers, and charm—as the heritage of Jewish foreigners arriving from Europe, Russia, the United States, and other corners of the globe.”
Abulhawa does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen at speaking to the messiness of the human condition whether it be pain, suffering, love, or loss. Although the characters are fictional, the tale of Palestinian genocide and its events are all real — told across four generations of characters who try to remain whole and care for each other and their homeland to the best of their abilities amidst immeasurable atrocities.
If I wasn’t in public while reading most of this I think I literally would have been full out sobbing at multiple points (from sadness but also multiple tender/joyful moments).
Here is one of my favorite quotes that I think illuminates a lot of what the book is able to show in striking color:
“Thus Yehya tallied forty generations of living, now stolen. Forty generations of childbirth and funerals, weddings and dance, prayer and scraped knees. Forty generations of sin and charity, of cooking, toiling, and idling, of friendships and animosities and pacts, of rain and lovemaking. Forty generations with their imprinted memories, secrets, and scandals. All carried away by the notion of entitlement of another people, who would settle in the vacancy and proclaim it all—all that was left in the way of architecture, orchards, wells, flowers, and charm—as the heritage of Jewish foreigners arriving from Europe, Russia, the United States, and other corners of the globe.”