ekes reviewed Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Cleverly woven tale, at the same time very human, set with the politics of now for a Palestinian
4.5 stars
Content warning Impossible to write anything without revealing at least some of the content and the reveal is part of the book. Read the book, it's worth it. Then read this.
The reveal is part of the book, because despite the fact we begin with the narrator, Nahr, in solitary confinement in an Israeli prison. We don't know why she is there, nor her earlier recollections give a pointer to them. But how the story is told almost everything in her life recounted is important to the eventual conclusion. At first the recollections, from years living as a Palestinian in Kuwait, are quite dispassionate. Given the nature of some of what happens, content warning includes sexual violence, this feels quite correct. The tone used resonated with another book I'd read and was struggling to think which? Something about Leila Khaled maybe? No I realised it was Margrit Schiller's in my mind similarly worded description of how she, maybe more, actively fell into the RAF and of being imprisoned. Schiller's description of prison and solidarity confinement is much darker than in this book incidentally. History, and politics, impinge on the life of Nahr, who otherwise wouldn't have been drawn to have an interest in them, nor possibly Palestine itself. But it is love, and a man, that are also important in this too. Part of me feels disappointed that it has to be a man that actually catalyses a lot of this. Right up to the strength found through him in the court room. Different, loving, caring, relationships with people are central to Nahr's character, and drive her and the novel. Set truly for someone in the Palestinian diaspora against a loveless world.
