 First edition (original title) | |
| Author | Susan Abulhawa |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Scar of David |
| Language | English and other languages |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Journey Publications (2006) Bloomsbury Feb 1, 2010 [1] |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Paperback |
| Pages | 331 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1-60819-046-1 |
Mornings in Jenin, (2010, U.S.; originally published as The Scar of David, 2006, United States and Les Matins de Jenin, France) is a novel by author Susan Abulhawa.
Mornings in Jenin was originally published in the United States in 2006 as The Scar of David. [2] [3] The novel was translated into French and published as Les Matins de Jenin. It was then translated into 27 languages. Bloomsbury Publishing reissued the novel in the United States as Mornings in Jenin (February, 2010) after slight editing. [3] [4] [5]
Mornings in Jenin is the first mainstream novel in English to explore life in post-1948 Palestine. The novel was partially inspired by the Ghassan Kanafani novel Return to Haifa .
Anjali Joseph of The Independent writes that "Susan Abulhawa's novel, first published in the US in 2006 but since reworked, follows the Abulheja family, Yehya and Basima and their two sons, in Ein Hod, a village in Palestine. The pastoral opening crams into 40 pages a cross-faith friendship, a love story (both brothers fall for Dalia, who marries the elder son, Hasan), a death, the Zionist invasion of the village, and the theft of one of Hasan and Dalia's sons, the infant Ismael, by an Israeli soldier. He gives the child to his wife, a Polish Holocaust survivor. Usefully for narrative purposes, the baby, renamed David, has a scar on his face "that would eventually lead him to his truth". From these beginnings, which promise a Middle Eastern Catherine Cookson's story, a fine novel emerges." [6]
Abdullah Khan of The Hindu comments that what struck him most is the honesty of the author’s voice. Despite being born to Palestinian refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, she has tried hard not to let her personal feelings fill the text. All individual Jewish characters are portrayed in sympathetic light. Nowhere in the story has she lost the touch of humanity. Another bright aspect of Susan’s writing is her ornamental use of language in the tradition of contemporary Arabic writing." [7]
Robin Yassin-Kassab of The Sunday Times suggests that at "times you want to criticise Abulhawa for laying the tragedy on too thick, but her raw material is historical fact and her blend of fiction and documentary is one of the book’s strengths. What rescues Mornings in Jenin from polemic is its refusal to wallow or to stoop to tribalism. One of its many achievements is that, for such a necessarily political work, no character becomes a mere cipher for suffering or victimhood. Although the novel is written according to Anglo-American conventions, it echoes the poetic prose that is a feature of contemporary Arabic writing. Abulhawa effectively communicates her bubbling joy in what she calls 'the dance' of Arabic, pondering the language’s intricate courtesies and imagistic flair." [8]
In 2007, a live reading of The Scar of David was later reduced to only a book signing by the Barnes & Noble store in Bayside, New York. Barnes & Noble stated that the change was made for the safety of the author, also noting a need for “sensitivity” to the Jewish community. [9]
Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian novelist and political and cultural commentator.
Elias Khoury is a Lebanese novelist and public intellectual. His novels and literary criticism have been translated into several languages. In 2000, he won the Prize of Palestine for his book Gate of the Sun, and he won the Al Owais Award for fiction writing in 2007. Khoury has also written three plays and two screenplays.
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was produced in many different parts of the world throughout the medieval and modern eras, while contemporary Hebrew literature is largely Israeli literature. In 1966, Agnon won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew, making him the first Hebrew writer to receive this award.
Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. After earning her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco, she received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom (UK), where she earned an MA in linguistics.
Sahar Khalifeh is a Palestinian writer. She has written eleven novels, which have been translated into English, French, Hebrew, German, Spanish, and many other languages. One of her best-known works is the novel Wild Thorns (1976). She has won international prizes, including the 2006 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, for The Image, the Icon, and the Covenant. Khalifeh obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Birzeit University, Palestine.
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 Book of Time", originally released as "Le Livre du Temps", is a French children's fantasy novel trilogy written by Guillaume Prévost and first published in France by Gallimard Jeunesse. The first book of the series, La Pierre Sculptée, was released in February 2006; the final book was released in November 2008. The trilogy follows fourteen-year-old Sam Faulkner as he travels through time and around the world via a strange statue and some unusual coins with holes in them to find his missing father.
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. She lives in Pennsylvania. 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.
David Dean Shulman is an Israeli Indologist, poet and peace activist, known for his work on the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics, and Carnatic music. Bilingual in Hebrew and English, he has mastered Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu, and reads Greek, Russian, French, German, Persian, Arabic and Malayalam. He was formerly Professor of Indian Studies and Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and professor in the now defunct Department of Indian, Iranian and Armenian Studies. Presently he holds a chair as Renee Lang Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has been a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1988.
Where the Streets Had a Name is a young adult novel by Randa Abdel-Fattah. It was published in April 2008, shortly after the death of the author's grandmother. The book won a 2009 Golden Inky Award.
Anwar Hamed is a Palestinian novelist and poet. He was born in Anabta, Palestine, and went to Hungary for college. His first short stories were published in Arabic when he was still a teenager in the West Bank, but after his move to Hungary, he started writing in Hungarian. His first novels were written in this language. Since 2004, he has been living in London, where he works for BBC Arabic His short story entitled “The Key”, published in English, was longlisted to British Science Fiction Association Award 2019. His most recent novel is Shijan, which was published in Arabic in March 2019.
Samira Azzam was a Palestinian writer, broadcaster, and translator known for her collections of short stories. In 1948, Azzam fled Palestine with her husband and family in the Nakba. Her collections of stories are renowned for examining the entirety of the Palestinian identity during this time period. Her first set of short stories, Small Things, was published in 1954, and examined women's role in Palestinian society. After returning to Beirut in 1959, she examined other Palestinian social structures such as the class hierarchy. She published two more collections of short stories during her life, The Big Shadow and The Clock and the Man. Throughout her writing, she does not cast blame as to the cause of these social structures, but rather creates plot lines that characterize these different sub-cultures within Palestinian society, relating them to political situation of this historical period. Therefore, her writing creates a very holistic view of Palestinian national identity during this time in history.
Huzama Habayeb ) is a Palestinian novelist, storyteller, columnist, translator, and poet who has won multiple awards such as Mahmoud Seif Eddin ِAl-Erani Award for Short Stories, Jerusalem Festival of Youth Innovation in Short Stories, and Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature. Upon graduating from Kuwait University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts in English language and Literature, she pursued careers in journalism, teaching, and translation before she eventually started to write professionally as a published author. She is a member of both the Jordanian Writers Association and the Arab Writers Federation.
Camelia Suleiman is an American academic who currently serves as associate professor at Michigan State University. She has also served as the Academic Director of the school's Arabic Flagship Program (2012-2017) and led the Arabic Program from 2012 to 2020. She has published Language and Identity in the Israel-Palestine Conflict: The Politics of Self-Perception and The Politics of Arabic in Israel: A Sociolinguistic Analysis. Her third book is Arabic between State and Nation: Israel, the Levant and Diaspora.
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian-American writer, poet, and clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma, addiction, and cross-cultural behavior. Her writing covers aspects of identity and the effects of displacement, particularly within the Palestinian diaspora. She is also known for acting in the short films I Say Dust and Tallahassee.
Sonia Nimr is a Palestinian writer, storyteller, translator, ethnographer and academic. She writes for children and youth in Arabic and English, and relates folk-tales in colloquial Arabic. She is the winner of the 2014 Etisalat Award for Arabic Children's Literature for Best Young Adult Book for her book Extraordinary Journeys to Unknown Places. Nimr is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University.
Shada Mustafa is a Palestinian novelist, best known for her novel ما تركت خلفي which was shortlisted for the Sheikh Zayed Book Award for Literature 2021, Young Author category.
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.