Mornings in Jenin

Mornings in Jenin is fab! I could not put it down. Similar to The Kite Runner, it introduced me to a new world layered in a finely put together set of characters over a span of over 60 years. Certainly worth your time and $15! If you had to choose only one book, choose Mornings In Jenin.

Mornings in Jenin, by Susan Abulhawa, is the story of one Palestinian family over four generations. It can be argued, however, that it is also a story about any and every Palestinian family. The novel begins in the picturesque village of Ein Hod in the north of Palestine. The Abulheja family leads the simple life that most Palestinian farmers led before their tragic dispossession in 1948. Love was plentiful in Ein Hod. Love for life, for family, for God, and for the land. This was the essence of a farming society for generation upon generation. The Abulhejas and their countrymen are forced out of their villages and homes only to find refuge in foreign towns and lands. They find themselves in a refugee camp in Jenin, their lives totally turned upside-down after losing everything they knew in their simple but beautiful, Palestinian village. As they struggle in the refugee camp, in the early period after their exile, olive harvest season approaches. Haj Yehya, the family's patriarch, sneaks across the armistice line to tend to his olive groves despite the threat of death from an Israeli bullet. When he returns to the camp in Jenin where his family anxiously waits, he brings them the fruits of his labor, and the labor of generations before him, plucked from their trees in their village. Nothing could stop this old man from returning to his village, but on his next trip, he never made it back to Jenin. That was the last time any Abulheja attempted to return, but the dreams of return only grew stronger. Amal, with a long vowel (a name meaning "hopes" in Arabic), was born in the refugee camp of Jenin to Haj Yehya's son Hasan. Her older brother, Yousef, spent his early years in Ein Hod before the Nakba. Another older brother, Ismael, was taken from his mother's arms during the exodus from Ein Hod. It would be through Amal's eyes, however, that the family's story is told. Susan Abulhawa's masterful writing is delightful to read. She writes with an element of metaphor, undoubtedly owing its origins to the Arabic language, which brings color and feeling to every page of this novel. The characters are well-developed and one cannot help but grow attached to them. After each tragedy, be it 1948, 1967, and 1982, a new generation of the family is born, providing hope not only for the characters, but also for the reader who will inevitably experience a sense of depression in parts of the book. Amal is born into refugee life. She grows up in the shadow of a mother that was devastated by the loss of a child. In 1967, Amal experiences 6 days of horror in a hole in the ground that will forever change her family's life. The father that read poetry to her in the early hours of the morning, the scenes that lend the book its title, is never seen again. Her mother slips into dementia, and her brother Yousef will soon leave to join the resistance. She grows up away from Jenin, and seeks an education in the United States. Her father's wish was that she be educated and

Ms. Abulhawa has composed a marvelous story that weaves history with fiction, personal experience with imagination into a dynamic novel that offers points of contact for readers of many backgrounds. Her narration thick with motherly affection and human virtue invites the reader to read slowly and truly experience the story she is trying to tell. Ein Hod, outside of current-day Jenin district, is the village of the Abul Heija's, a rural Palestinian family who are forced to flee during the war in 1948. Amal Abul Heijah, the granddaughter of the family, takes center stage as a symbol of hope and the tenacious will of survival, creativity, and love, even if doubt, depression, and poverty cloud her dreams and opportunities. Amal's struggle for self-identification, caused by several layers of displacement from family, land, and home, is constantly accompanied by her detailed memory, which ultimately leads her to her destination. A must read.

This is a novel from a Palestinian point of view, the first I've ever read. It is a story of a family, displaced in 1948 by the Israelis. The reader gets to know them all, especially the narrator, Amal, born in a refugee camp in 1955. Through her eyes the story unfolds. We get to know her mother, her father, her siblings, her friends and all the people she loves. There are romances and joyful occasions as well as the horror that is imposed on them by the Israelis. To me, this was an awakening. I was deeply moved and identified completely with the plight of each of the people the author so beautifully brought to life. There's her strong mother who is driven to insanity by the horror about her. There's her brother who is fights the Israelis and is brutally abused. There is her father who reads beautiful literature to her and teaches her to be proud of her roots and who is lost in one of the many wars with the Israelis. There is her childhood friend with whom she hides in a cellar for six days while a bloody battle rages around them. And then there is her other brother, kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised as a Jew. Amal is lucky. Like the author, she gets an education and immigrates to America and we get to see America through her eyes. When she finds out that her Palestinian brother and his family have gone to Lebanon, she goes to visit. Here she meets the love of her life and a happy marriage follows. But she must flee again to protect her unborn child, leaving her husband, brother and sister-in-law behind to meet a horrible fate. It is not until twenty years later that she returns to Palestine with her grown daughter. Again, tragedy strikes. At 325 pages, this is a fast read, and I read it all in a couple of days, having it haunt my thoughts whenever I put it down. I loved the characters, loved the writing and hated the political events that have brought such suffering to the Palestinian people. This is an important book. It has opened my eyes and I don't think I will ever be able to think of middle-eastern politics in the same way again.

"Mornings in Jenin" challenges that premise through the story of the Abulheja family. Although the novel spans years from 1940 to 2003, it focuses on the life of Amal, the daughter of Hasan and Dalia. Through Amal's life, the reader is drawn into the Palestinian Diaspora and given a glimpse of the consequences it has for every individual, regardless of national origin, who is touched by that region's conflict. Before her birth, Amal's brother, Ishmael, is stolen by an Israeli soldier who wants to give his wife the one thing she desires, a child to love. Later, her beloved father is imprisoned and disappears; despair causes her mother to withdraw emotionally and mentally from living. Her brother, Yousef is driven to follow Yassar Arafat. Eventually orphaned, Amal enters a private school where she earns high grades and receives a scholarship to study in the United States. Following her graduation from Temple University, Amal returns to Jerusalem where she meets and marries a doctor, Majid. As conflict with Israel increases, a pregnant Amal returns to the United States; her husband is to follow. However, he is killed when the apartment where the couple lives is bombed. The destruction of dreams, family separations, the fostering of hate, and anonymous, mindless killing are all elements which combine to impact Amal both physically and psychologically. Further and as a result, the way Amal perceives her relationship with her daughter Sara is affected. Only after 9/11, reconciliation with her brother David (Ishmael), and the realization that she can and does love Sara, does Amal's story reach its climax. Written as both a first person and third person narrative, "Mornings in Jenin" moves seamlessly between the two voices. As a result, the emotional impact of the novel on the reader may be greater than had the book been written from a single perspective. The reader feels and sees the environment in which Amal lives. Amal's narration of her life is so realistic that one cannot help but be affected by her situation. Characters in the novel are complex individuals who grow through the years; their reactions and emotions are very real. This is a novel which packs an emotional impact far beyond the regional conflict it highlights. At one point, Amal has "...no wish, save to be loved and whole as she had been in the early mornings with her father..." That wish will never be granted, but in the end Amal realizes she can love and, as a result, sacrifices herself to save her daughter Sara. "Mornings in Jenin" is a story of lives destroyed, of selfless sacrifice to save others, and of the conquering power of love. Susan Abulhawa has written a book which takes those concepts to new heights. This is not a novel to be skimmed, but one to be savored and to be thoughtfully read.