 First edition | |
| Author | Colum McCann |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Random House (US) |
Publication date | 25 February 2020 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 480 |
| ISBN | 9781400069606 |
| Preceded by | TransAtlantic |
Apeirogon is a novel by Colum McCann, published in February 2020.
The novel explores the conflict in the Middle East. It follows the story of two men who each lost a daughter. One is Palestinian, the other Israeli.
The story follows two real life figures: Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian scholar who, when he was 17, had been sentenced to a 7 year term of imprisonment for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Consisting of 1001 short sections, the two central figures bond over the violent deaths of their respective daughters. The 14 year old Smadar Elhanan was one of 5 people killed in 1997 as a result of a Hamas suicide bombing attack along the pedestrian mall of Ben Yehuda Street. Abir Aramin, aged 10, died from a gunshot wound to the head fired by an Israeli Border policeman, while she was returning home from school in 'Anata in 2007.
Reviews for the book have been generally positive. Charles Finch in The Washington Post described the book as "a loving, thoughtful, grueling novel. [1] Shoiab Alam, writing in The Daily Star , hailed the novel as "a masterful and timely literary response to [the] region's neverending horrors." [2] However, the international best-selling Palestinian-American writer Susan Abulhawa calls it "Another colonialist misstep in commercial publishing" that "mystifies the colonisation of Palestine as a ‘complicated conflict’ between two equal sides". [3]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Booker Prize | — | Longlisted | [4] [5] |
| Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger | Novel | Won | [6] | |
| Prix Médicis | étranger | Shortlisted | [7] | |
| 2021 | Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence | Fiction | Longlisted | [8] |
| Dalkey Literary Awards | — | Shortlisted | [9] |
The one-state solution is a proposed approach to resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, according to which one state would be established in former Mandatory Palestine. Proponents of this solution advocate a single state encompassing the currently recognized state of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The term one-state reality describes the belief that the current situation in Israel/Palestine is de facto a single state. The one-state solution is sometimes also called a bi-national state, owing to the hope that the state would be a homeland for both Jews and Palestinians.
Annie Thérèse Blanche Ernaux is a French writer who was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory". Her literary work, mostly autobiographical, maintains close links with sociology.
Mohammed Moulessehoul, better known by the pen name Yasmina Khadra, is an Algerian author living in France, who writes in French. One of the most famous Algerian novelists in the world, he has written almost 40 novels, and has published in more than 50 countries. Khadra has often explored Algerian and other Arab countries' civil wars, depicting Muslim conflicts and reality, the attraction of radical Islamism to those alienated by the incompetence and hypocrisy of politicians, and conflicts between East and West. In his several writings on the Algerian war, he has exposed the regime and the fundamentalist opposition as the joint guilty parties in the country's tragedy.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli philologist, professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, translator, and activist. She is a 2001 co-laureate of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament. She is known for her research on the portrayal of Palestinians in Israeli textbooks, which she has criticized as being anti-Palestinian. Elhanan supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and now lives in New York. He is the co-founder and President of Narrative 4, an international empathy education nonprofit. He is also a Thomas Hunter Writer in Residence at Hunter College, New York. He is known as an international writer who believes in the "democracy of storytelling." Among his numerous honors are the U.S National Book Award, the Dublin Literary Prize, several major European awards, and an Oscar nomination.
Palestinian literature refers to the Arabic language novels, short stories and poems produced by Palestinians. Forming part of the broader genre of Arabic literature, contemporary Palestinian literature is often characterized by its heightened sense of irony and the exploration of existential themes and issues of identity. References to the subjects of resistance to occupation, exile, loss, and love and longing for homeland are also common.
The Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger is a French literary prize created in 1948. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Novel and Essay for books translated into French.
Ruth Gilligan is an Irish writer, journalist and university lecturer, born in Dublin.
Nathan Thrall is an American author, essayist, and journalist based in Jerusalem. Thrall is known for his 2023 nonfiction work A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, and is a contributor to several literary magazines. As of 2023 he is a professor at Bard College in New York state.
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian writer and human rights activist and animal rights advocate. She is the author of several books, and the founder of a non-governmental organization, Playgrounds for Palestine. Her first novel, Mornings in Jenin, was translated into 32 languages and sold more than a million copies. The sales and reach of her debut novel made Abulhawa the most widely read Palestinian author of all time. Her second novel, The Blue Between Sky And Water, was sold in 19 languages before its release, and was published in English in 2015. Against the Loveless World, her third novel, was released in August 2020, also to critical acclaim.
Let the Great World Spin is a novel by Colum McCann set mainly in New York City in the United States. The book won the 2009 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative literary prizes in the world. Its title comes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Mornings in Jenin, is a novel by author Susan Abulhawa.
Footnotes in Gaza is a journalistic graphic narrative by Joe Sacco about bloody incidents between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza during the Suez Crisis. It was published in 2009 by Henry Holt and Company in the U.S. and Jonathan Cape in the UK.
Yishai Sarid is an Israeli author, novelist and lawyer.
Avraham "Miko" Peled is an Israeli-American activist, author, and karate instructor. He is author of the books The General’s Son: The Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, published in 2012, and Injustice: The Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five, published in 2017. He is also an international speaker.
TransAtlantic is a novel by Colum McCann, published in June 2013.
The Grand prix des lectrices de Elle is a French literary prize awarded by readers of Elle magazine.
Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members.
Rami Elhanan is an Israeli graphic designer and peace activist.
The Blue Between Sky and Water is a book written by Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa. The book is Abulhawa's second novel and was sold in 19 languages before its release, and was published in English in 2015. The book navigates the experience of three generations of Palestinian women as they face the consequences of the Israeli occupation.
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