Following our discussion of “Silences & Words” in Palestinian literature (you can find the recording of the event here), we are glad to announce this discussion with award-winning novelist Susan Abulhawa on her latest book “Against the Loveless World” on November 22nd 2020, 6 PM.
Published first in 2019 in German (dt. “Nahrs Letzter Tanz”), Abulhawa’s novel was finally published for the English speaking audience in August 2020.
Its main character Nahr, a young Palestinian woman, makes her journey from her family home in Kuwait into a failed marriage, soon after which she meets Um Buraq, a woman who will change Nahr’s life forever.
Their reality is ruptured when first Iraq and later the USA occupy Kuwait, and Nahr and her family are displaced again. Soon Nahr makes her first trip to Palestine, a place known to her only through the tales of her family and is forced to reflect upon her beliefs and convictions. It is from within her prison cell that Nahr tells us her own story.
Together we want to reflect on female narratives of displacement and the intergenerational memories of Palestine in fiction. As we read about resistance and imprisonment, we rethink the role of the author.