While the world sleeps - Susan Abu Al-Hawa

The novel traces the story of four generations of the Abu Al-Haj family living in a quiet Palestinian village, cultivating olives and recounting the suffering they endured since the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. How their peaceful lives were forever shattered and they were forcibly displaced from their village and ancestral land to a refugee camp in Jenin, beginning a tragedy that continues to this day. Through the eyes of Amal, the granddaughter of the family patriarch, we learn about them and what happened, for example, to her two brothers: the first sacrifices everything he owns for the Palestinian cause, and the other was kidnapped from his family to become a soldier in the Israeli army and an enemy to his brother. Meanwhile, Amal's dramatic story spans the six decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict: stories of love and loss, childhood, marriage, family life, and the need to share all this history with her daughter to preserve the greatest love in her life. Number of pages: 471 Publisher: Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press