AGAINST THE LOVELESS WORLD : winner of the palestine book award

2020 Palestine Book Awards Winner 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize FinalistFinalist for the Aspen Words Prize Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light & dark nothing to do with day & night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere; because Nahr is not going to share her story with them. The world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, & a whore; some might call her a revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things, & had many names. She was named for the river her pregnant mother crossed when she fled from Palestine, but her feckless father called her Yaqoot, Ruby. For a time when she came of age she was Almas, Diamond, a girl who went to hidden parties in Kuwait with powerful men, who sold off parts of herself to keep her family together. She was a girl who learned, early & painfully, that when you are a second class citizen love is a kind of desperation; she learned, above all else, to survive. She was a girl who went to Palestine in the wrong shoes, & without looking for it found what she had always lacked in the basement of a battered beauty parlour: purpose, politics, friends. She found a dark-eyed man called Bilal, who taught her to resist; who tried to save her when it was already too late. Nahr sits in the Cube, and tells her story to Bilal. Bilal, who isn't there; Bilal, who may not even be alive, but who is her only reason to get out.°°°Susan Abulhawa was born to Palestinian refugees of the 1967 war. She is a human rights activist & frequent political commentator. She is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an organization dedicated to upholding Palestinian children’s Right to Play. Her first novel, Mornings in Jenin, was an international bestseller. Her second novel was The Blue Between Sky & Water. "Nahr has been confined to the Cube: nine square metres of glossy grey cinderblock, devoid of time, its patterns of light and dark nothing to do with day and night. Journalists visit her, but get nowhere; because Nahr is not going to share her story with them. The world outside calls Nahr a terrorist, and a whore; some might call her a revolutionary, or a hero. But the truth is, Nahr has always been many things, and had many names. She was named for the river her pregnant mother crossed when she fled from Palestine, but her feckless father called her Yaqoot, Ruby. For a time when she came of age she was Almas, Diamond, a girl who went to hidden parties in Kuwait with powerful men, who sold off parts of herself to keep her family together. She was a girl who learned, early and painfully, that when you are a second class citizen love is a kind of desperation; she learned, above all else, to survive. She was a girl who went to Palestine in the wrong shoes, and without looking for it found what she had always lacked in the basement of a battered beauty parlour: purpose, politics, friends. She found a dark-eyed man called Bilal, who taught her to resist; who tried to save her when it was already too late. Nahr sits in the Cube, and tells her story to Bilal. Bilal, who isn't there; Bilal, who may not even be alive, but who is her only reason to get out."--Publisher "From the internationally bestselling author of the "terrifically affecting" (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Mornings in Jenin, a sweeping and lyrical novel that follows a young Palestinian refugee as she slowly becomes radicalized while searching for a better life for her family throughout the Middle East"-- Provided by publisher