Book Review: Mornings in Jenin, Susan Abulhawa
Jenin, a Palestinian city on the West Bank is the backdrop to this searing and beautifully written fiction; half-novel half-history.
Susan Abulhawa’s book will transport you into the rugged geography of Israel and Palestine and the heart of the struggle between two sides locked into a seemingly endless conflict. Mornings in Jenin examines that conflict from the perspective of a Palestinian writer.
Of course, I have read Mornings in Jenin in the aftermath of Hamas’s appalling and murderous spree on October 7th 2023. I can offer no certainty about the author’s viewpoint on the moral equivalence of Hamas’s pre-planned grotesque action and the devastating military response by Israel in Gaza.
The story follows the fortunes of the Abulheja family, Palestinians…
But to comment on the present war in Gaza would deflect us away from reviewing Mornings in Jenin.
If you are in search of an author who can turn suffering and a deeply ingrained sense of injustice of a whole people, families, and individuals into beautifully written paragraphs and sentences that capture desperation, humiliation, fear, hope, and defiance without ruining love and tenderness and generosity, you should read Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin.
The story follows the fortunes of the Abulheja family, Palestinians, forced from their homes in Ein Hod in 1948 by Israeli soldiers and moved en masse to Jenin, a refugee camp on the West Bank. The final chapter is set in Jenin in 2002 in the aftermath of the Israeli military strike and battle that lasted 12 days and resulted in the destruction of property and life on both sides.
I could quote many paragraphs that lift the reader beyond vivid fictional description and well-crafted prose into the realms of poetry and the spirit.
Bear in mind I am half-American by birth, so I take this quote on the chin:
‘Amal, I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell…the kind (of love) that dives naked towards infinity’s reach. I think it is where God lives.’
or,
‘David cried silently. He stood over his sister’s body…though he made no sound, the force of his grief was strong, hovering over the graves like rain that cannot fall.’
Perhaps the greatest compliment that I can muster for Mornings in Jenin is that, just as it is virtually impossible not to believe that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal portrays real historical individuals, Susan Abulhawa has clothed her fictional characters with such flesh and blood, emotions and conviction, and aging flesh that they come alive as you read the book. You can almost touch them, taste their food, and drink their sufferings.
‘David cried silently. He stood over his sister’s body…though he made no sound, the force of his grief was strong, hovering over the graves like rain that cannot fall.’
Yes, I can, and would, argue the toss about her historical analysis of the opposing Israeli/Palestinian causes but if, like me, you see the hand of God in the remarkable return of the Jews to the land of Israel, may I recommend you read this book; maybe it will cause you to ‘dive naked towards infinity’s reach…where God lives’.