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From the author of the international bestseller Mornings in Jenin comes a powerful, passionate story of a family separated by conflict, and the tragedy they endure 'The story Susan Abulhawa tells in this marvellous novel is hard to bear but impossible to ignore ... precise, courageous, and dazzling' Teju Cole 'Gripping and deeply moving ... Suffering and resilience are difficult things to witness, but this powerful, politically engaged novel does so with a transformative literary grace.' Independent on Sunday It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a rural Palestinian village, is home to the Baraka family – oldest daughter Nazmiyeh, brother Mamdouh, beautiful, dreamy Mariam and their widowed mother. When Israeli forces descend, sending the village up in flames, the family must take the long road to Gaza, in a walk that will test them to their limits. Sixty years later, in America, Mamdouh's granddaughter Nur falls in love with a doctor. Following him to his work in Gaza, she meets Alwan, who will help Nur discover the ties of kinship that transcend distance – and even death. Told with raw humanity, The Blue Between Sky and Water is a lyrical, devastatingly beautiful story of a family's relocation, separation, survival and love.
From the author of the international bestseller Mornings in Jenin comes a powerful, passionate story of a family separated by conflict, and the tragedy they endure 'The story Susan Abulhawa tells in this marvellous novel is hard to bear but impossible to ignore ... precise, courageous, and dazzling' Teju Cole 'Gripping and deeply moving ... Suffering and resilience are difficult things to witness, but this powerful, politically engaged novel does so with a transformative literary grace.' Independent on Sunday It is 1947, and Beit Daras, a rural Palestinian village, is home to the Baraka family – oldest daughter Nazmiyeh, brother Mamdouh, beautiful, dreamy Mariam and their widowed mother. When Israeli forces descend, sending the village up in flames, the family must take the long road to Gaza, in a walk that will test them to their limits. Sixty years later, in America, Mamdouh's granddaughter Nur falls in love with a doctor. Following him to his work in Gaza, she meets Alwan, who will help Nur discover the ties of kinship that transcend distance – and even death. Told with raw humanity, The Blue Between Sky and Water is a lyrical, devastatingly beautiful story of a family's relocation, separation, survival and love.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Susan Abulhawa was born to Palestinian refugees of the 1967 war. Currently living in Pennsylvania with her daughter, she is a human rights activist and 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, with rights sold in twenty-six languages. Along with The Blue Between Sky and Water, she is most recently the author of Against the Loveless World, a finalist for the Aspen Words Prize and winner of the 2021 Palestine Book Award and the 2021 Arab American Book Award.
Reviews-
July 6, 2015 Abulhawa’s (Mornings in Jenin) tale of a Palestinian family is suffused with mystery, pain, and love. During the Israeli attack on the camps in Gaza on Dec. 27, 2008, young Khaled experiences something akin to Locked-in syndrome, something that he calls “a place of blue,” and from this state he is able to both witness the present and participate in the past. He is real enough to teach his great-aunt Mariam to read back in the family’s home village of Beit Daras long before he is born. In the present, Nur, an American-born psychotherapist of Palestinian descent, hears of Khaled and is spurred to travel to Palestine to attempt to help him, not knowing that she is herself a lost member of the family. Nur’s own life has been filled with loss and abuse. Her beloved grandfather died before he could bring her back to Gaza, and she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather before being rescued by a loving social worker, Nzinga. In Palestine, Nur finds “life and love and death and will were packed close.” Abulhawa’s characters’ lives vividly depict resiliency in the face of adversity.
Independent on Sunday
Gripping and deeply moving ... Suffering and resilience are difficult things to witness, but this powerful, politically engaged novel does so with a transformative literary grace. Abulhawa's prose is luminous; her control of a complex weaving of narrative voices – young and old, male and female, magical and real – is masterful. The novel provides an intimate close-up of the women of Gaza and of the everyday heroism amid relentless loss
Financial Times
She is a fine observer of female kinship ... A powerful read
Daily Mail on Mornings in Jenin
One of the most thought-provoking books I've read ... written with passion, honesty and poetry
Independent
Abulhawa's writing shines ... Friendship, adolescence, love: ordinary events, offset against extraordinary circumstances, make the story live
Daily Telegraph
The writer's pain – and the beauty of her prose – are very real
Stylist
Powerful and moving
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Bloomsbury Publishing
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