In Etaf Rum‘s A Woman Is No Man: A Novel, Deya, Isra, and Fareeda – three Palestinian American women spanning as many generations – deal with their roles and the expectations of their community. Isra and her eldest daughter, Deya, prefer books and college to arranged marriages. Fareeda, the traditionalist matriarch, believes a woman’s future depends on marrying the right man. Susan Abulhawa‘s Against the Loveless World: A Novel, tells the story of Nahr, a young Palestinian woman fighting for a better life for her family as she travels as a refugee throughout the Middle East. Born in Kuwait in the 1970s to Palestinian refugees and becoming a refugee herself after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Nahr lands in Palestine and strives to realizes her dreams while living under Israeli occupation. And Suad Amiri‘s Mother of Strangers follows the daily lives of two Jaffa teenagers in love. But it’s also a story about Jaffa itself, the “Mother of Strangers,” a cosmopolitan port city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians live peacefully together. But once the bombardment begins in April 1948, Jaffa is irrevocably changed, marking the beginning of the end of Palestine. Moderating is poet Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, co-founder of the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
This is a ReadingEast program.
