If there’s a more important or timely book to read in 2024, I’ve not come across it. This is it. If you have any social conscience or any desire to learn more about Palestine and its history – then you simply must read it.
Starting out in 2018 in the Logan Shopping Centre car park in Queensland, the book introduces Samah and her father ‘George’. Samah is an Australian-Palestinian author, playwright and poet, and she would like permission and assistance from her father, whose real name is Abdul Karim, to write his story. His history, his family’s history and the history of his people. He agrees, and thus it begins.
We are taken on a journey beginning in the 1940s and filled with so much love, intellect, sorrow, and loss, that I am getting goosebumps just remembering it. Karim’s story and history is very powerful and filled with so many wonderful and interesting characters. I was captivated from start to finish.
This story is a work of non-fiction, however Sabawi does admit to small shades of fiction, filling in characters outside the family to cover the collective experience of Palestinians. The whole book is exceptionally well written. It is easy to read and follow, and entwines all the important historical events with real people and real lives. Storytelling is a great way to educate people and this book is no exception.
If you enjoyed Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin or Sara Haddad’s The Sunbird, or simply wish to start a journey of learning, this is the book for you. Five big shiny stars.
Reviewed by Sarah Kraus
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samah Sabawi is an author, playwright and poet and a recipient of multiple awards both nationally and internationally. Her theatre credits include the critically acclaimed and award-winning plays Tales of a City by the Sea and THEM.
In 2020 Samah received the prestigious Green Room Award for Best Writing in the independent theatre category, and was shortlisted for both the NSW and Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. With Stephen Orlo Samah edited the anthology Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas, winner of the Patrick O’Neill Award and she co-authored I Remember My Name: Poetry by Samah Sabawi, Ramzy Baroud and Jehan Bseiso, edited by Vacy Vlazna, winner of the Palestine Book Award.
Samah received a Doctor of Philosophy from Victoria University for her thesis titled Inheriting Exile, transgenerational trauma and the Palestinian Australian Identity. Samah has just published the memoire Cactus Pear for My Beloved.
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