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Published Nov 2021
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Paperback Original.
Publication Information
In this "beautiful...urgent" novel (The New York Times), Nahr, a young Palestinian woman, fights for a better life for her family as she travels as a refugee throughout the Middle East.
As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and possibly opening her own beauty salon. Instead, the man she thinks she loves jilts her after a brief marriage, her family teeters on the brink of poverty, she's forced to prostitute herself, and the US invasion of Iraq makes her a refugee, as her parents had been. After trekking through another temporary home in Jordan, she lands in Palestine, where she finally makes a home, falls in love, and her destiny unfolds under Israeli occupation. Nahr's subversive humor and moral ambiguity will resonate with fans of My Sister, The Serial Killer, and her dark, contemporary struggle places her as the perfect sister to Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties.
Written with Susan Abulhawa's distinctive "richly detailed, beautiful, and resonant" (Publishers Weekly) prose, this powerful novel presents a searing, darkly funny, and wholly unique portrait of a Palestinian woman who refuses to be a victim.
"[A]t its heart, Abulhawa's novel is a love story ... but this is a love story that cannot escape its geography, and Abulhawa elegantly crafts a world where the tension between desire and survival is laid bare." ―New Yorker
"A meditation on love and alienation in a setting that is by nature political [...] Exhilarating and contemplative." ―Los Angeles Review of Books
"Abulhawa has created a spirited protagonist who lives invisibly and in opposition to her 'loveless world,' telling her own story on her own terms." ―New York Times Book Review
"The detailed explorations of a woman's pain and desperate measures make this lush story stand out." ―Publishers Weekly
"Through Nahr, Abulhawa seamlessly, affectingly parallels Palestine's brutal, occupied history during the last half-century, humanizing headlines with names, families, dates, memories that belong to people with whom readers can identity, believe, empathize, mourn and ultimately, albeit tentatively, celebrate." ―Shelf Awareness
"In this moving and nuanced novel, Abulhawa takes a hard look at the inheritance of exile and the intersection of the political with the personal, as Nahr's story reveals the complexity beneath the simple narratives told on both sides of a deep divide." ―Booklist
"A remarkable story filled with lyrical prose and breathtaking humanity." ―Book Reporter
"From the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which made her a refugee, to jilted love, poverty, prostitution, a trek through Jordan, and falling in love, Nahr's life unfolds in twists and turns, told beautifully by the internationally bestselling author of Mornings in Jenin." ―GMA.com
"This is one masterfully written story you won't be able to put down." ―CNN.com
This information about Against the Loveless World was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian-American writer and political activist. She is the author of Mornings in Jenin—translated into thirty languages—and The Blue Between Sky and Water. Born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, she moved to the United States as a teenager, graduated in biomedical science, and established a career in medical science. In July 2001, Abulhawa founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a non-governmental children's organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children. She lives in Pennsylvania.
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