From anger to love

Susan Abulhawa talks about her novel Mornings in Jenin, a book that traces a Palestinian family through a history of regional crises.

An elderly Palestinian sits among debris in the refugee camp of Jenin in 2002 after the Israeli attack that inspired Susan Abulhawa to write Mornings in Jenin.

Susan Abulhawa was working in a laboratory in Philadelphia when, in 2002, Israel attacked the Jenin refugee camp. The second intifada was by then more than a year old, and daily news of the conflict was forging for Abulhawa - whose own family lost their home in Palestine during the 1967 war - a renewed sense of connection with her people. "I was working in medical research at the time, not earning much money," she remembers. "Reports of a terrible massacre were emanating from Jenin. And, somehow, I just knew I had to be there.

"I didn't even know where I was going to stay. But I discovered that you can knock on pretty much any door on the West Bank and find a place to sleep. I made friends quickly, and they helped me sneak into Jenin. It was one of those experiences that change you forever. The sight of so much death, of unbelievable cruelty. They were digging bodies out of the rubble. "I was so humbled by the people in Jenin. They remained defiant, and showed such love for one another. That's when I knew I had to write something about Palestine, and our story."

So began the journey that has led Abulhawa, today, to a plush central London hotel where she has come to talk about her novel Mornings in Jenin, published earlier this year in the UK to a host of approving reviews. Mornings in Jenin traces one family through the arc of recent Palestinian history, from the 1948 creation of Israel, when they are ejected from their ancestral land in Ein Hod, to the present day. Much is seen through the eyes of Amal, granddaughter of the family patriarch. Via Amal, we witness the 1967 war and subsequent occupation of the West Bank, and then, once the teenage Amal has escaped to the US, we follow her brother, Yousef, through the 1982 Lebanon War, the massacres at Sabra and Shatila and the start of the second uprising in 2000. Meanwhile, just over the horizon looms Amal's younger brother Ismael, lost to the family in 1948. Unbeknownst to them he was kidnapped by an Israeli soldier and raised as an Israeli Jew.

It's a novel, then, that sets its face to a fiercely contested, emotive history. No surprise that by the time of UK publication Mornings in Jenin had accumulated a contentious history of its own. Controversy in the US reached a high point when, in 2007, a New York Barnes and Noble cancelled a reading by Abulhawa, citing complaints by some among the local Jewish community. Abulhawa says the incident is another example of selective hearing of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Certainly, Mornings in Jenin is a rare species, at least in the West, offering a view of the Middle East conflict through Palestinian eyes. So what can this book tell us about the erasure of the Palestinian narrative from mainstream western discussion on the Middle East? And what can it do to challenge that erasure?

The novel's vast scope is, of course, greater than any single life could encompass. Nevertheless, Abulhawa's own biography is woven around the Israel Palestine conflict in a way similar to Amal's. Abulhawa was born outside Palestine to refugees from the 1967 war, and arrived in the US as a teenager. "As a teenager in America, I hated my last name; I just wanted to fit in," she says. "It was only in my 20s that I became interested again in Palestinian politics, and my roots. Then the Second Intifada began, and I was incensed by the one-sided news coverage. Just lies upon lies."

Abulhawa started writing opinion pieces for newspapers. Then came the trip to Jenin, and the determination to write something broader. "If I'd thought I was going to write this great sweep of Palestinian history, I'd have been too intimidated to start," says Abulhawa. "I began with stick characters who all spoke with my voice. In time they filled out, and began to tell their own stories." The novel blossomed into an epic that takes in every crucial staging post in recent Palestinian history. That, however, left Abulhawa with an altogether new challenge: how to sell a Palestinian story in a country so connected, both geopolitically and emotionally, to Israel.

"I've got a pile of rejection letters, like any writer," she says. "Some of them say: 'we like this book, but we can't touch it'." It's easy to believe that Abulhawa didn't let these early setbacks deter her for long. Quick to smile and equipped with an easy American informality, it's clear she is also in possession of a metal-hard determination. Long before the trip to Jenin, she forged a successful scientific career in the pharmaceutical industry. These days, Abulhawa travels back to Palestine regularly in support of Playgrounds for Palestine, the charity she founded in 2002 that builds playgrounds for children on in West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon.

Still, finding a publisher for Mornings in Jenin - originally published as Star of David in the US - didn't mean a final victory. Next came the Barnes and Noble affair, and a studied silence from most US critics. What is it, then, about the Palestinian story that renders it unable to gain traction in the US? Abulhawa has given much thought to the question. "I had one review in the mainstream US press. The reviewer's response was telling. She said that she enjoyed the novel and sympathised with the characters, but felt she must 'second guess' that feeling. Even bloggers who liked the book tended to focus on the subplot about Amal's lost brother; it was as though they were uncomfortable about the idea of a book that tells a Palestinian story, through Palestinian eyes.

"I think that Palestinians have become so dehumanised that people feel they must question the legitimacy of anything connected to them. It amounts to a kind of erasure of the Palestinian narrative. It's a story that is not allowed to be heard. "Edward Said has written brilliantly on all this. He called the Palestinians 'the victims of the victims', and this is a crucial insight. I think it's very hard for people to hear a story about Israel's crimes against the Palestinians, when they know how the Jewish people suffered in the Holocaust."

Abulhawa's depth of feeling is just as evident on the page as it is in person. Indeed, Mornings in Jenin occasionally lapses into polemic. But when it comes to the Palestinian story, says Abulhawa, art and politics are necessarily intertwined. "The book is first a work of art. But everything Palestinian is political at the moment. Telling this story is so important, because what we're talking about, ultimately, is not just the erasure of the Palestinian narrative. It's the erasure of Palestine, and it's going on right now."

Given that, it's hardly surprising that a hot anger burns across the pages of Mornings in Jenin, which depicts horrifying events, such as the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, in terrible detail. So was writing the book cathartic? Or did it only intensify her anger? "I started writing with anger. But as I wrote, I fell in love with the characters. And then I wrote out of love for them, for my family, my country, for the people I had met in Jenin. Anger will always be there; how could it not be after this monumental injustice? But I finished this novel with love, not anger."

What, then, of the future? Will the region ever see a just peace? Abulhawa is an optimist: "I have no faith in the roadmaps and quartets that we hear about on the news," she says. "Real change will come from popular movements. That means people in their own countries putting pressure on their governments to stand with Palestine. And I think that now, those movements are growing. I hope Mornings can contribute in some small way to that."

And crucially, a new generation of diaspora Palestinians are bringing the Palestinian story to the world: "We're seeing second-generation Palestinians express themselves through music, dance and film. All that can help to remind people of the humanity of the Palestinians. "We have experienced a collective trauma that has taken deep root in our psyche. Even if the conflict were to end tomorrow, it would take a long time to heal. But when you look to history, it's clear: this kind of injustice is never sustainable. You can't oppress a people forever."